Fresh from scoring a brace against Motherwell and just a day away from potentially starting in a League Cup semi-final, Dundee United starlet Charlie Telfer is in no doubt that he made the right choice to make the move to Tannadice.
The 19-year-old took the bold decision to make the switch from his boyhood heroes Rangers in the summer but the midfielder has never looked back with his stock seemingly rising with each passing week.
United may have had to pay £204,000 for the highly-rated teenager’s services after all was said and done, but Telfer is determined to prove that will be money well spent.
“I thought it would obviously take a while to establish myself and try to get in the team, but it’s going miles better than I ever thought it was going to go,” he told Courier Sport.
“It’s just been a case of getting my head down and trying to show why Jackie McNamara brought me here.
“He’s obviously had confidence in me to play me and I just want to try and work hard.
“All the boys are great boys and the training’s good.
“Everyone knows they’ve got a chance to play on a Saturday so it’s good.
“It’s really competitive and it helps me.
“Before I signed here you see the young players like Ryan Gauld, Andy Robertson and John Souttar, and you just felt that if you went to United then you would get the chance to do what they have done.
“The manager gives you the confidence to go and express yourself.
“He’s said before that he’s not going to have a go at you if you try and do something positive, so that obviously gives you a bit of confidence to try and do something creative and help the team.
“So I feel like it’s been a good move for me and hopefully I can repay the manager’s faith in me.”
Telfer certainly strengthened his case for a starting role against Aberdeen tomorrow with two goals in United’s 3-1 win over Motherwell at the weekend, and he freely admits the pre-match nerves are starting to kick in.
“Saturday’s game against Motherwell went better than I ever imagined so I’m feeling confident going into this weekend,” he continued.
“Hopefully I’ve given the manager something to think about.
“I think a lot of players did on Saturday there were a lot of good performances against Motherwell so we’ve probably given the manager a bit of a headache.
“Obviously the cup semi-final has been in the back of our minds, but we’ll just try to take Saturday as a normal game even though it is massive for the club.
“The games in the last few weeks, although maybe some of the results haven’t been the best, the performances have been good.
“So I’m sure the manager will have a hard decision to make on Saturday.
“The manager chops and changes things and it keeps everybody on their toes, so I’ll just be happy to be involved.
“I won’t be worrying about team selection.”
Celtic take on Rangers in the weekend’s other semi-final and, while many people’s eyes will be on that mouth-watering encounter, Telfer reckons the New Firm clash tomorrow could well be the more attractive proposition.
“Obviously it will be the first Old Firm for a few years but if both United and Aberdeen play well on Saturday it will be a very entertaining game,” he added.
“They are doing really well at the moment, although they might not have got the result they wanted at the weekend.
“They’ve been brilliant the last few months so we know it’s going to be a tough game.
“Hopefully we’ll be on our game on Saturday and we can beat them.
“On our day, I think most teams won’t be able to handle us and I feel that it would be well deserved if we got a trophy to show for everything we’ve done.”