Celtic have reportedly made a pre-contract offer to Charlton midfielder Alfie Doughty tonight but they could land the 21 year old on a cut price deal due to the same cross border loophole that helped bring Moussa Dembele to the club.
There are a number of clubs interested in the young Englishman with Stoke City already having a £600,000 offer accepted along with another English Championship side and Celtics Glasgow rivals have also been interested in the player and have offered him a deal too.
Doughty is out of contract in the summer but Charlton are looking to cash in and offload the player in the January window to stave off the threat of losing him for nothing if his contract expires.
Boss, Lee Bowyer seems resigned to losing the player but insists there is no rush to get a deal done, “I don’t know why it has to move quickly. I don’t think there is any rush. The agent is trying to rush it through – he tried to give us an ultimatum yesterday of 24 hours. Then it was 12 hours.
“I think it will happen when the time is right and the deal is right for the football club. We want the right deal and if we get that it will happen quickly – if we don’t then it won’t.
“There is more than one club interested in him. Again we will get the best deal we can for the club. We’ll sit down with Alfie and see what he thinks. That’s the right thing to do.”
Celtic will be hoping that Doughty will put pen to paper as, boss Neil Lennon, has been after his man for quite some time.