Celtic have rejected a bid from Fulham for Boyata.
Clubs are apparently offering him 3x his Celtic wage so Iād say heāll be away. Heās been good enough since forcing his way into Rodgersā team 18 months ago.
He did well in the World Cup group stages, including that dead rubber against England, so Celtic might be able to get something outrageous for him like say Ā£13m. Weād need to have somebody lined up to replace him though.
EPL money is insane. Bournemouth signing some lad from Levante for Ā£25m today and Burnley trying to sign Jay Rodriguez for Ā£18m.
The problem is the replacement alright. The offer around Ā£10m for someone who is in their last year of their contract and has been very inconsistent is very decent. But weād have to hope that prices would settle down after the English window closes, that we can get past AEK Athens and that we can be attractive enough for a decent centre back to join.
McGinn is apparently in Birmingham considering a move to Aston Villa. Talk of a fee of Ā£4m which is double what Celtic have offered and again is an English premium for someone in the last year of their contract.
It certainly seems that way. And transfers in general. Celtic have apparently matched the Aston Villa offer.
Weāre linked with Izaguirre and Denayer today. Izaguirre has said heās talking to Celtic about returning. We donāt really have backup for Tierney so not against that but itās not exactly thrilling. Not sure how much is in the Denayer story. I wasnāt really convinced by him the first time but he seemed to have a decent season at Galatasaray last year.
We really need to get a right back in. Talk of Roberts too, think weāll have a good chance of getting him if he hasnāt moved by tomorrow evening, hopefully a permanent deal too.
This transfer window is going awry for Celtic, it seems.
Down a couple of starting options from last season in Armstrong and Roberts without replacing them. Seemed to make a balls of getting McGinn and the dawdling allowed Aston Villa to nip in.
Commentatorās eye from me on the Celtic-Hearts thread at the weekend as Boyataās back pain is more like an unofficial strike. Turned down Ā£9m from Fulham for him but now heās taken the hump. Potentially without him when the window closes as clubs in Italy and Spain are apparently following him too, even though English clubs canāt buy him now.
Only completed business is securing Edouard permanently and he was already here last season on loan and signing Izaguirre again as cover for Tierney. The Izaguirre signing comes on the back of Celtic being linked with a whole host of players whoāve played for the club before with strongest links to Denayer and Roberts.
Managed to get through CL preliminaries last season with Bitton filling in at centre back but AEK Athens look a step up from that opposition and weāre taking them on while being weaker than then. Iām not too confident in the Simunovic/Hendry partnership and we really needed to sign a centre back.
The only other deal mooted at present is for the Aussie attacker Arzani now heās been signed by Manchester City and is expected to be offloaded onwards.
Scott McKenna bids have been rejected and Rodgers says it seems like that deal is dead.
I havenāt seen him that much but itās not a thrilling prospect for the remainder of this transfer window if we are going to lower options than McKenna.
There is āinterestā in Boyata who has not made the trip to Lithuania. Regardless of whether we manage to get someone else in or not we should be selling him now. Heās a bit of an asshole.
