SUTTON BECOMES A BHOY

CHELSEA misfit Chris Sutton became Martin O’Neill’s first signing for Scottish giants Celtic in a deal reportedly worth £6 million to the London club and in doing so snubbed former England international Bryan Robson by rejecting Middlesbrough.

The decision to plump for the SPL over the Premiership is sure to raise a myriad of eyebrows as Sutton seeks to regain his goalscoring touch.

Sutton had been a prolific striker at both Norwich and Blackburn Rovers, netting 82 goals in just 214 league games for the two clubs, but it all went pear-shaped after his now infamous £10 million move to Chelsea. The pressure of expectation appeared to be too much for the troubled forward and he added just a solitary strike to his tally during the entirety of 1999-2000.

Celtic’s latest acquisition had revealed in an early Chelsea programme that he would have been an undertaker had he not taken up football, and at times Sutton must have wished the ground would have swallowed him up after missing a glut of glorious opportunities in front of goal. The 27-year-old fired in 32 shots in a Blues shirt but only a miserable 31% of them tested the keeper. It is such profligacy that has led to a cut-price move North of the Border for the much-maligned striker.

But was Sutton right in choosing Scotland as opposed to sticking in the English top flight? Well in terms of the past, many players have found success with our Northern neighbours with names such as Paul Gascoigne and Rod Wallace springing instantly to mind and the Nottingham-born attacker will be keen to disprove his critics and bag a hatful.

Sutton should at least find himself at the end of more chances in front of the fervent Celtic Park crowd with arguably the more lax standard of defending allowing a plethora of centres and defence-splitting passes through to the front men. During the 1999-2000 season, Celtic swung over 283 successful crosses into the box, which translated as almost 100 more chances than Sutton could have received if he had chosen Middlesbrough and the North-East.

Ironically, Chelsea whipped in an almost identical number of telling centres as Celtic last season and one must question how Sutton managed just the single effort in the Premiership - a bullet header against the champions Manchester United.

But, the former England international should revel in the free-scoring SPL in which Celtic netted a massive 90 goals during the 1999-2000 campaign - almost double the amount that Middlesbrough tallied in the Premiership last term - and despite Sutton’s poor season in England, the odds of 3/1 for him to pick up the golden boot in Scotland seem quite short.