Celtic always made it clear that they were not prepared to sell Matt O’Riley for less than the club received for Jota from Al-Ittihad last summer and for Kieran Tierney from Arsenal a number of years before.
Italian side Atalanta tested Celtic’s resolve while Brighton sat on the sidelines and waited. Eventually after five attempts, all below the asking price, the Europa League holders, turned their attention elsewhere and Brighton made their move. Atalanta’s highest bid was £23.5m (including add-ons), and that was still well short of the Celtic asking price.
The Seagulls aren’t messing around and have already submitted a bid to Celtic, as we reported yesterday.
And it appears that the English Premier League side have reached the threshold that Celtic set as negotiations on the deal continues, with this one looking like being more that Atalanta’s bargain hunting.
Daily Mail reported that Napoli want to sign Billy Gilmour from Brighton but they want to have the O’Riley deal concluded before allowing the Scotland midfielder to leave.
And Stephen McGowan writing in Daily Mail today reports that Brighton have taken heed and that they are prepared to meet the asking price with sources informing him that the £25m price tag is NOT an issue from the Brighton end of the deal. Accordingly they are confident that a deal can be agreed and that Matt O’Riley will leave Celtic to sign for Brighton.
That fee will be subsided by the sale of Gilmour, while Brendan Rodgers will activate his own plans to recruit two midfielders before the window closes, with multiple names being mentioned as possible Celtic signings over the past few weeks. A left-back and a central defender are apparently also on the Celtic manager’s shopping list.
After the 3-1 win over Hibs at Celtic Park on Sunday afternoon, Matt O’Riley stayed around outside the stadium much longer than any of his teammates, signing autographs and having selfies taken with supporters. It looked very much like he was savouring the moment ahead of an expected exit this week.
Meanwhile the news yesterday about Leicester City interest in Reo Hatate seems to have been wide of the mark. Hatate is going to have to deliver an impress season and stay injury free if he is going to fulfil his own ambitions and make a similar move to the one that Matt O’Riley is likely to make shortly.
The very best of luck to Matt when he goes. He’s been top class on and off the park during his time at Celtic. Presumably MK Dons will have a sell-on clause in their deal with Celtic so they could be in for a windfall from this transfer deal.
I don’t think he’ll go to Brighton – unless he was given assurances that a top club down there, the same way VVD went from Southampton to Liverpool, can sign him from Brighton within 2 years or something. Otherwise, he’ll stay as I’m sure he said he’d rather sign for a CL club. Hope I’m not wrong but we’ll see pretty soon I guess