With Vinicius Souza being one of Celtic’s main transfer targets this season, it has been a bit strange that we haven’t been seriously linked with another player for that position over a month after the player decided on a loan switch to Espanyol.
There were rumours of interest in Fausto Vera and Abu Fani shortly after the Souza deal fell through, but they didn’t amount to anything.
Celtic have of course brought in Aaron Mooy, and although he can play that role, it doesn’t look like he is going to make that No.6 position his own and allow McGregor to push up one, the way Souza would have done.
And now with the Haksabanovic deal looking like it’s almost completed, it appears Ange Postecoglou and Celtic are once again turning their attention to an out and out defensive midfielder, as rumours for two separate players began late Friday night.
One of them is 22 year old 6ft2 Hadjuk Split enforcer Jani Atanasov.
Croatian journalist Izac Sucic, who was apparently the first to break the Juranovic to Celtic story, tonight confirmed that Hadjuk are willing to sell the player if Celtic meet their asking price, although he didn’t give an indication of how much that was.
The player has apparently fallen out with the manager though and hasn’t played too much recently, so the fee I would imagine would be relatively cheap.
But another rumour came out not too long after this one, this time from an account that doesn’t have the biggest following, but claims to have inside info as his father was a former agent, and he has links to Celtic and Everton.
He claims that Celtic are interested in tough tackling Brazilian Gustavo Assuncao, a 5ft8 22 year old who plays for Famalicão in Brazil, but recently spent time on loan at Galatasaray and has played twice for Brazil U23s.
I think if we can add in a really good defensive midfield player, it will really help us, especially in Europe and in derby matches where we have looked a bit lightweight at times and easy to go through, so it is exciting that we are once again starting to be linked with players for this position.
Take a look at the two posts below.
