City Group owed La Liga leaders Girona are ‘strongly interested’ in signing Celtic midfielder Matt O’Riley and a bid is expected before the transfer window closes in a fortnight’s time. Sky Sports broke this story this evening and you can watch their video below.
BREAKING: Girona are strongly interested in signing Celtic’s Matt O’Riley before the January transfer deadline 🆕 pic.twitter.com/V8Egxb91Pm
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) January 18, 2024
And Sky Sports journalist Lyall Thomas expands on this in an exclusive report where he states that “La Liga leaders Girona are strongly interested in signing Celtic’s Matt O’Riley before the deadline. Another big club in Spain looking too and at least one in the Premier League. Top player.”
Exclusive: La Liga leaders #Girona are strongly interested in signing #Celtic’s Matt O’Riley before the deadline. Another big club in Spain looking too and at least one in the Premier League. Top player. https://t.co/OzHTtF6aQx (w/@AnthonyRJoseph) pic.twitter.com/iASOHyZ21Z
— Lyall Thomas (@SkySportsLyall) January 18, 2024
His Sky Sports colleague Anthony Joseph, who has a better grasp on the Celtic position in all of this, gave this update on the breaking transfer news. He said: La Liga leaders Girona have joined the list of clubs interested in Celtic midfielder Matt O’Riley. Brendan Rodgers sees him as a key player and – after he signed a new bumper contract – Celtic are in a strong position.”
Matt O’Riley signed a contract extension in the summer and appears to be perfectly happy playing for Celtic and in no rush to go to the next level with his career. He was playing League One football with MK Dons before Celtic, now he’s won four major honours, played in the Champions League and has broken into the Denmark national side. O’Riley is not going to be short of suitors and Celtic would not get more money for him in January as opposed to the summer or even the summer after that.
And with a huge financial bonanza from the new Champions League structure from next season, winning the Scottish Premiership this season brings with it unmissable returns, that is why Celtic are unlikely to entertain any bid in January and there are bound to be several.
Leeds United had a £10m bid rejected by Celtic in the summer and now O’Riley’s valuation appeared to have tripled since then. Who is to say it will not rise further in the second half of the season?
Celtic would be crazy to consider selling the best player in the Scottish Premiership at this stage. It would be illogical and unthinkable. And when he does leave, Matt O’Riley will carefully select his next move and with all respect to Girona and the wonderful season that they are having, it’s unlikely to be them that he chooses.
LaLiga leaders Girona have joined the list of clubs interested in Celtic midfielder Matt O’Riley.
Brendan Rodgers sees him as a key player and – after he signed a new bumper contract – Celtic are in a strong position.
(w/@SkySportsLyall)pic.twitter.com/UeIfE66ynm
— Anthony Joseph (@AnthonyRJoseph) January 18, 2024
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Yes but looks like there are two goalkeepers Celtic are supposedly looking at will see I’d expect if money and players happy Rodgers would like 3 maybe 4 so end of January be busy if we were still in Europe we’d have a better to offer to sign them instead we have to convince them to sign with spl and Cup to tempt them but win spl champions league lies in wait
Club should take a leaf out of other clubs books and install huge minimum bid clauses in our better players contracts; O’Rileys, like CCVs & others should be £50m.
It’s what we do, right, sell our most promising players.
Would like to see this team stick together for at least another season, have another crack at Europe, older, wiser, technically better and with some serious reinforcements brought in to help shoulder the load of first team football over a season…