NEIL LENNON is closing in on signing his own contract to be the next Celtic manager, that is expected to happen today and he’s also ready to make his his first move in the transfer market with a £1.2million bid for Motherwell’s David Turnbull, as reported by Stephen McGowan at the Daily Mail.
Turnbull, who won the Scottish Football Writers young Scottish player of the year award, scored 16 goals in 34 matches for Motherwell last season and recently signed a contract extension at Fir Park which commits him to Motherwell until 2021.
However Motherwell could find it impossible to refuse an offer in the region of £1.2million and Neil Lennon wants to move fast, with Premier League side Brighton now managed by Graham Potter and his Scottish assistant Billy Reid who has plenty of knowledge about Turnbull and could make a move themselves, having bee keen to sign Turnbull for their former club Swansea.
The Scottish Sun are also linking Celtic with an interest in Charlton star Joe Aribo. The 22 year old midfielder is available for a modest compensation fee due to cross-border transfer rules, similar to the way Celtic signed Moussa Dembele from Fulham. He has also been attracting interest from the Rangers.
Aribo is just short of 100 league appearances for Charlton and scored ten goals last season in their promotion from League One.
Meanwhile Mikael Lustig’s contract at Celtic ends today and there has still been no word from either the player or the club if his time in the Hoops is over. Lustig was signed on a free transfer from Rosenborg in January 2012 so has been at Celtic for the 8 consecutive titles won.
He dropped out of the side when Rodgers brought in Jerry Toljan at the end of January but was re-instated when Lenny took over as interim boss at the the end of February. Lustig scored the goal at Aberdeen that set Celtic on the way to a title party in Aberdeen and also provided the assist for Odsonne Edouard to score the winner in the Scottish Cup Final on Saturday against Hearts that completed an historic Treble Treble.
Celtic had a one year extension option on the Swede’s contract, similar to Scotty Sinclair’s, but do not appear to have taken this up.
So unless there is a dramatic (and welcome) change of heart today it looks like Mikael Lustig’s time in the Hoops are at an end.
