“My understanding is” – Roger Hannah’s bitter/sweet Celtic transfer update

It seems like this could be a long summer in terms of where Portuguese winger Jota could end up playing his football.

The question for me is, is the club as desperate to keep a hold of him as much as us fans? Who knows, but according to journalist, Roger Hannah, the 23 year old has not dismissed the idea of extending his stay in Scotland.

But he did caveat that with a warning about the reports from Portugal.

Speaking on Clyde 1 Superscoreboard, Hannah said, “Jota is extremely switched on in terms of looking after himself. His diet, his nutrition. He’s extremely switched on in terms of where he believes his career can go.

“And I think there’s going to be a big decision for Jota because Celtic will undoubtedly be keen to keep him.

“Celtic, they have the finances to keep him. So it may come down to whether the player wants to stay in Scotland for a longer period of time, or whether he thinks his career would be better served going elsewhere.

“It is interesting the Portuguese press are saying he will be keen to stay.

“I’m not as convinced and I’ll tell you why. Because sometimes, I’ve seen stories let this back in their homelands.

“And it’s maybe just designed to smoke out other interest. Would it be mad to think that an English Premier League team would be interested in taking Jota and that may be more attractive to Jota.

“But my understanding is he’s, liking his time at Celtic and he wouldn’t be averse to extending it.”

It is interesting that Hannah isn’t the first to dismiss these Portuguese reports which leads me to think that there may be another reason to the ‘leaking’ of Jota’s availability.

Hopefully the lure of Champions League football will be enough to persuade Jota to stay in Scotland because, with all the best will in the world, the Scottish league, regardless if you are at Celtic isn’t the most appealing to many players.

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