Celtic News

Celtic dealt blow in pursuit of £4m-rated 27-year-old

|

Celtic have been warned off their interest in Olympiacos right-back Omar Elabdellaoui, with their manager Pedro Martins stating his intention to keep his first-team squad intact.

The Hoops are reported to be considering a £4m bid for the Norwegian international, seeing him as a potential long-term replacement for Mikael Lustig.

Fans have been urging the club to get business done on the right flank of defence for a number of transfer windows now and Elabdellaoui’s capture would likely be a crowd-pleaser.

However, he won’t be given up easily.

As quoted by The Scottish Sun, Olympiacos boss Martins said of the situation:

Many European clubs have been interested in our players. But I have not had a single player who has come to my door asking to leave.

We are focused on our goals of winning the title again and we won’t risk that by selling any players.

To achieve our goals this season, we need a quality squad so none of our first team players will be sold this month.

The 34-cap international has played 21 times for the Greek giants so far this season, so he is clearly seen as an important player within that squad, which means Martins comments pretty much rule out a move to Scotland for the 27-year-old, at least during this transfer window.

We don’t really have the financial clout to table an unbelievable offer that would tempt them into selling, so will we be forced to move onto other targets in the position? A move for Timothy Castagne already appears to have been unsuccessful, so we’re now moving down the list of right-backs who could improve the first-team.

Hopefully our prioritisation of the issue will lead to us doing the business we need before the end of January.

Share this article

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *