JASON DENAYER has opted to join French side Lyon instead of signing for Celtic.
Ironically enough the Ligue 1 side turned their attention to Denayer after their earlier interest in fellow Belgium Dedryck Boyata cooled.
Tonight the French club’s President Jean-Michel Aulas confirmed that a deal has been agreed for the 23-year-old defender with Manchester City and the player is already thought to be in Lyon, according to lequipe.
@JM_Aulas : “pas d’accord avec Ruben Dias, on a perdu un mois. On va se tourner vers une autre piste, un joueur de Manchester City.” ce sera donc Denayer, qui “est à Lyon” ce soir. #mercato @Europe1 @Europe1Sport pic.twitter.com/vbxktq0yG8
— Julien Froment (@JulienFroment) August 17, 2018
JM Aulas vient de confirmer l’info @lequipe : Jason Denayer va s’engager à l’OL. Le joueur est déjà présent à Lyon https://t.co/SmkEsClBOG
— Bilel Ghazi (@BilelGhazi) August 17, 2018
Galatasaray was the preferred destination for Denayer but the Turkish side struggled to meet the financial side of the deal. It was thought that thus left the door open for Celtic, where Denayer enjoyed a successful season long loan deal in 2014/15 season, winning the Scottish young player of the year award.
A move back was discussed with City for the following season but this was halted after Celtic failed to qualify for the Champions League, losing to Malmo.
With Celtic once again exiting the Champions League, Denayer may well have opted for the French league rather than the Scottish Premiership and the Europa League.
Celtic yesterday admitted that Brendan Rodgers had held a meeting with Boyata after his disgraceful behaviour last week that let down the fans, his teammates and the management team.
A solution will have to be found by the end of the month with a move to Spain most likely.
Boyata is expected to re-join his teammates for training on Monday and you would imagine he’d like to have some transfer activity over the week-end to save him from receiving the cold shoulder treatment from the Celtic squad.
Hopefully this will be the last time you ever have to read a story that Celtic are interested in Jason Denayer, a guy who you get the feeling looks down his nose at us.
The Celtic Star’s League Cup Quiz – see how many you can answer correctly!
CELTIC historian David Potter over the past few weeks has been posting a daily feature on all of our League Cup wins, starting in 1956 and running through to last season’s 2-0 win over Motherwell.
We’re trying to add a few new features to the site and would like to get the hang of the Quiz and and Survey options.
Here is a League Cup quiz for you to try. There are plenty of additional features we can add as we go along, but this is just the basic version, so forgiven any rough edges etc.
See how you get on. Good luck!
