It has been widely reported today that Celtic are now in advanced talks with Canada World Cup star Alistair Johnston.
The right back is seen to be a replacement for current Celtic right back Josip Juranovic, who it is widely speculated will leave the club after the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
And according to Celtic supporter Ross, who phoned up Clyde SSB tonight, Johnston would appear to be an excellent signing for the hoops, although not as cheap as some may have originally expected.
“I moved here four years ago and I’ve had a bit of time watching him now with Montreal and Nashville and he’s a really strong payer from what I’ve seen at right-back. He’s aggressive as well which tends to work well with Celtic” stated Ross.
“There were little mumblings in Canada about three or four days before Canada’s first World Cup game of “oh, maybe Celtic are looking at Alistair and maybe something will happen with that.” But it was all rumours.”
“But then the big deal was after the game it went massive on OneSoccer, which is one of the big publications in Canada that Celtic had an eye on him and that they were really interested.”
“From what I’ve seen, I would class him as very similar to Juranovic. He’s a very strong right-back.”
“He can also play centre back and he can also move into the wing as you will have seen against Belgium yesterday.”
“He also likes to get forward when he can and assist, I think this year so far in the MLS he’s assisted four or five goals this season and he’s scored three himself as well.”
“So he can score goals but he’s also a really strong defender as we seen against the likes of Kevin De Bruyne last night.”
“He can hold his own and he works well with that sort of backline, but he can also assist the midfielders, which I think would come in really well with Celtic in the future, because that’s kind of what we get right now with JJ, and I think it would be great to see somebody else come in who could potentially fill that space.”
“If I remember right, the latest valuation I’d seen for him, which was earlier this month, was about $6m, so probably around £5m.”
£5m certainly isn’t a cheap acquisition for Celtic, but you would think realistically we would get at least three times that in for Juranovic if he was to leave in January, so if we can get in a replacement for the third of the cost, who is going to potentially end up being a better player than Juranovic, then it will be a great move and this is exactly the type of transfer business that Ange has said the club are striving to do to become better.
Check out the player in action here: Video: Watch Celtic Right-Back Target In Action – Deal At “Advanced Stage” – Champions 67
