There are two rumours that have cropped up over the last week to ten day that are refusing to go away.
One of them is Ross Barkley to Celtic, and the other is Josip Juranovic to Chelsea or Manchester United.
On of the main sources of the Ross Barkley to Celtic rumour, is a Chelsea podcaster/journalist Simon Phillips, who has 301k followers on Twitter and is apparently a very trusted source with good contacts inside the club.
In the last two or three days, Simon has stated that Chelsea now have an offer on the table from Celtic for Barkley, and it is for a permanent deal.
Now, I know like everyone else that Barkley is apparently on just short of £100k a week at Chelsea and many are doubting how Celtic could possibly offer him competitive wages, especially when there is interest from other EPL clubs like West Ham, Newcastle and Everton interested in the player.
I am wondering the same thing, but it doesn’t mean Celtic haven’t at least made him an offer. If Simon’s sources are correct, you would have to assume Barkley’s agent has let us know that he would be open to the idea of coming here.
But this is where things get even more interesting, Simon does a joint podcast and with another journalist, and they have stated on there today that Josip Juranovic has been discussed during the negotiations between Chelsea and Celtic for Barkley.
So, this could mean if all parties agree, then the two players could be used in a swap deal, with Barkley heading to Celtic Park and Juranovic heading to Stamford Bridge.
Swap deals have happened in football before, but they are normally too complicated and clubs just end up doing separate deals for each player.
This window, I don’t think Juranovic will be keen on going, unless the offer is simply too good to turn down, and it may very well be, but he will be going there as a back-up option to Reece James, and with a World Cup coming in a few months time, if he isn’t playing, he could lose his place in the national team.
But, he can also play left back and right back, and the Croatian manager has recently just stated him important Juranovic is to the team, so he could very well still keep his place, even if he’s sat on Chelsea’s bench for the months leading up to the tournament, so perhaps that will be a chance he is willing to take?
Remember, Ange said himself he expects a ‘hectic last couple of weeks’ of this window. This could very well be partly what he was referring to.
Check out the tweet below.
