Ruairi Daly 
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Patrick Roberts isn’t too concerned whether he represents his country or helps Celtic in the Champions League qualifiers this summer.
Celtic and the English FA will sit down and decide what will happen with Roberts as both vie for his inclusion in their respective squads.
Although the international tournament experience could be important for Roberts’ development, playing in the Champions League is equally important.
However, the youngster has stated that he is happy either way and refused to get drawn into the squabble for his services.
As quoted by the Glasgow Evening Times, he said:
They’ve got to decide that between themselves. I can’t have any say in that really. I’m happy to play for my country and to play for Celtic. Either way I’m happy.
At the moment his focus is on playing as much senior football as he can.
I’ve had people saying ‘he’s young, we’ve got to be careful’ for a few years,” he said. I was at Fulham when I was very young and then Manchester City and they both said the same things – that it’s all about age.
As a young player, you want a manager to have faith in you and definitely the manager here has shown faith in me and I’m grateful for that.
Ronny Deila expressed his desire for the winger to play for Celtic this summer in the qualifiers rather than jet off to Germany for the Under-19 European Championship’s with England.
Although maintained that he only wants what is best for Roberts and his development as a footballer.
The most important thing is Patrick’s development. He has played a lot of youth football in his life but he has not played a lot of first team football, so it should be simple but you never know in football.
Our preference, of course, is that he will be with us. We will try to make that happen.
At 19, the winger, who is on loan from Manchester City is already seeing his name in big lights and some are even comparing him to his hero, Lionel Messi.
Roberts refused to get ahead of himself with the Scottish Cup semi-final tie next weekend likely to be the biggest game in his career.
We’ll get to that after Motherwell, and prepare for it next week. It should be a very good game as well. These are potentially the biggest moments of my career coming up. From what people say, it’s some derby.
The England youngster has already scored twice for Celtic, and if he continues to impress he could become a fan favourite and a key player over the next year in the green and white Hoops jersey.
Aodhán Ó Conchobhair 
Eric Knott 
