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Paul Elliott’s Celtic career could simply be described as right man, wrong time.

The English defender arrived at Celtic Park from Italian club Pisa for £500,000 in the summer of 1989. Elliott had moved to Italy from Aston Villa having started his professional career at Luton Town.

While the switch to the continent may not have worked out as well as hoped the Lewisham-born centre-half undoubtedly benfited from his spell in the more cultured environment of Seire A.

Physically strong, good in the air and no slouch, Elliot was also strong in the tackle and had the ability and confidence to play the ball out of defence. He was an undoubted asset to Celtic and his performances in the Hoops were seldom short of excellent.

Unfortunately for Elliott the same could not be said for too many of his Bhoys team-mates and through no fault of his own the defender had the misfortune to play in one of the poorest Celtic sides in history.

For two seasons Elliott was, alongside the magnificent Paul McStay, the only top quality performers in a Celtic side which could barely compete with the most mediocre of Scottish Premier teams let alone the big money signings of a rejuvenated and rampaging Rangers.

During Elliott’s time in Glasgow the Bhoys did make it to a Scottish Cup final (89/90) and a League Cup final (90/91). They lost the former to Aberdeen on penalties and the latter 2-1 to Rangers – Elliott netting for the Hoops.

Their league form in that period was however woeful, finishing in a sorry fifth and distant third as Rangers romped home to the title on both occasions. Elliott’s personal performances had been considerably better though than that of his team and he firmly established himself as a huge favourite of the Parkhead fans.

It could be argued of Elliott that during his time in the Hoops he wasn’t only the best defender at Celtic Park but the whole of Scotland. Certainly the plaudits from pundits were plentiful and there was also talk of an England call-up. Unsurprisingly clubs in England had also noticed Elliott’s fine displays and it seemed only a matter of time before he would be tempted back south.

So it proved when in the summer of 1991 Chelsea paid £1.25 million to take the player back to his native London. Big things were expected of Elliott but sadly his career came to a premature end when he suffered a serious knee injury following a tackle by Liverpool striker Dean Saunders in 1994.

Since then Elliott has enjoyed a successful career in the media and in October 2006 was appointed onto the English FA’s disciplinary panel. Elliott made a total of 66 appearances for Celtic over two seasons and scored five goals. He failed to pick up any winners medals during his time in Scotland but there’s little doubt that Elliott was a player good enough to play in any Celtic defence during the past 15 years.