Celtic have confirmed the signing of highly-rated Portuguese winger Filipe Jota from Benfica. The 22-year-old spent last year on loan at La Liga side Real Valladolid and made 19 appearances, scoring once and assisting once but the Portuguese winger will join up with Ange Postecoglou’s side in order to offer competition in the wide areas.
🇵🇹 𝗝 𝗢 𝗧 𝗔 🍀 𝗕 𝗛 𝗢 𝗬 ✍️
Jota has joined the Hoops from @SLBenfica on a season-long loan with an option to buy, subject to international clearance.#WelcomeJota 🟢⚪️
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) August 31, 2021
This is a good piece of business by Celtic as it is essentially a ‘try before you buy’ on the young attacker. If Celtic are impressed, they can exercise the £6.5m option to buy and take the Portuguese left winger on a permanent basis. Celtic had been linked with Kristijan Lovric from Gorica; however, it appears that the club have moved instead for the former Portugal U21 star.
Mikey Johnston remains sidelined and with Ryan Christie leaving, hopefully we will be able to see why Jota was rated so highly by Benfica.
Jota joins Giorgos Giakoumakis as the deadline day signings but this may not be all. Ange Postecoglou is said to be considering a move for a central defender on loan with Cameron Carter Vickers touted as a potential candidate.
Welcome to Celtic, Filipe!
Can he play Centre Half. No didn’t think so. Good signing but we need to shore up the defence.