Conor Bradley must seize opportunity as Bolton loan will teach him valuable lessons

He’ll get regular first-team football at a decent level, and with a team who should be battling for promotion.

He’ll endure real-life experiences in League One having been wrapped up in cotton wool at Anfield.

It’s exactly what he needs at 18 years of age and, from all the reports I’ve received on the kid and having watched him play, I think he’ll thrive at Bolton.

He has a terrific attitude, a will to win and, as Northern Ireland fans know only too well, he’s not afraid of a strong, crunching tackle.

Conor needed to get away from Under-23 football and have his eyes opened to ‘men’s football’.

Some of our young lads have waited too long for the chance to go out on loan and further their development.

But Conor will now have Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday games rather than a match once a week, as he did at Liverpool, while he will be in a dressing room with big characters and players who rely heavily on win bonuses.

As well as improving Conor as a player in a tough and uncompromising League, it will allow him to grow as a person off the pitch.

The fact he has agreed his loan so early in the summer will help him have a good, strong pre-season with Bolton and he should easily integrate into Ian Evatt’s team.

Ian, I believe, did his coaching badges with the Irish FA so no doubt he has been keeping a watching brief on Conor during his international displays.

Conor can only benefit from going to Bolton.

Liverpool have just paid £4m for another 18-year-old, Calvin Ramsay, who comes with experience of playing for Aberdeen in the Scottish Premiership, so Conor’s game time at Anfield this season, even in the League Cup, may well have been severely limited.

It will likely be Ramsay pushing Trent Alexander-Arnold for the right-back berth.

But loan spells are crucial to young players with Premier League teams. Just look down the list at players such as David Beckham, John Terry, Frank Lampard and Harry Kane who went out for a season and returned better players for the experience. They then started to thrive.

Northern Ireland defender Daniel Ballard has been out on loan from Arsenal for a couple of years now and hopefully his permanent move to Burnley can be completed as he would benefit greatly from a settled environment.

I stated before in this column that I believe Dan could do a decent job for Arsenal, but if he is not favoured by Gunners boss Mikel Arteta then it’s important to go and secure first-team regular football — even if it means dropping back into the Championship.

Defender Sam McClelland is another Northern Ireland player who has opted for a year-long loan, leaving Chelsea for a spell with League Two Barrow, and, as I found out with Lincoln City many years ago, that division will certainly give you an education.

Hopefully Ethan Galbraith (Manchester United) and Alfie McCalmont (Leeds United) will follow suit soon and secure the regular football they need to develop as players.

Conor has shown great maturity and ability so far in his career and I have no doubt he will return to Liverpool a much more rounded player after his year out at Bolton and be competition for Ramsay on his Reds return.

It’s right to make a meal out of win in Valencia

If ever a performance epitomised a true Northern Ireland display, it was in the sensational victory over Spain at the World Cup finals 40 years ago.

Down to 10 men, backs against the wall and in the Spanish bullring, it needed every ounce of heart, energy and desire to come away with arguably our nation’s greatest ever victory.

It was the blueprint for how a Northern Ireland team should respond in future battles.

They set the benchmark and last night at the Europa Hotel in Belfast, the players from that famous night in Valencia fully deserved the adulation that came their way at their anniversary dinner.

I’ve always been a person who looks forward rather than back, but victories like Northern Ireland’s in Spain, and the manner in which the win was secured, should be celebrated at key milestones, such as the 40th anniversary.

I’m sure it was a special occasion for the players to meet up again and reminisce about those wonderful days under the great, late Billy Bingham.

The tales Jimmy Nicholl tells of those days are legendary and I must admit I certainly feel an affinity with my team-mates who created history at Euro 2016.

I was chatting to Chris Baird recently and even though we hadn’t spoken for over a year, we immediately picked up as though we’d never been apart.

In future years, I hope we can get the band together again for an anniversary celebration.

It’s certainly worth celebrating and remembering the good times in Northern Ireland sport.

Allan McGregor’s new Rangers deal is a win-win

Rangers have saved themselves millions of pounds with goalkeeper Allan McGregor signing on for another year.

Following his cameo role in the dying minutes of the Scottish Cup Final, there was a feeling that Allan, at 40 years of age, had maybe played his last game for the club.

But I honestly believe he is still a top quality keeper and if Rangers were going to replace him, they would need to fork out a lot of money.

Just look at his performances in Europe last season. He made some world class saves. Yes, there were mistakes at times but that’s the life of a goalkeeper. It’s not always perfect.

But Allan has come to the rescue of Rangers more often than not. And I really couldn’t see him playing anywhere else. If he hadn’t re-signed at Ibrox, that probably would have triggered retirement.

Allan looks after himself really well — he’s in terrific shape and works incredibly hard in the gym. Like most of us, he likes a beer but only at the right time.

Knowing Allan, he hasn’t signed a new deal to sit on the bench. His mindset will be that he wants to work incredibly hard so that manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst is left with no option but to start him.

With Rangers now trying to wrestle the League title back from Celtic, Allan’s experience will be invaluable next season. And his decision to stay means Van Bronckhorst can now use the money to strengthen other areas of the team.

It’s a win-win situation for Allan and Rangers.