CELTIC are set to strengthen their squad with the signing of Ryan Christie and Jozo Simunovic before the summer transfer window closes today after agreeing fees totalling just under £5 million with Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Dinamo Zagreb respectively.
Christie, the SFWA Young Player of the Year last season, and Simunovic, the Croatian centre half, both underwent medicals yesterday after finalising personal terms with the Scottish champions.
Ronny Deila is also still hopeful of bringing in Scotland striker Steven Fletcher on loan from bottom-placed English Premier League club Sunderland until the end of the 2015/16 campaign.
However, the Glasgow club had last night still to agree a transfer fee with Southampton for their Dutch centre half Virgil van Dijk - they are holding out for at least £10 million for the 24-year-old defender.
Meanwhile, Stefan Scepovic, the Serbian striker who has failed to hold down a regular first team place since joining Celtic for £2.3 million last year, has moved to Getafe in Spain on a season-long loan.
Christie, 20, underwent a medical in Glasgow yesterday after Caledonian Thistle had accepted an offer in the region of £500,000 for the attacking midfielder who helped them finish third in the Premiership and win the Scottish Cup last season.
Simunovic, meanwhile, was examined in Belgium after a fee of around £4 million was settled upon with Zagreb. The 21-year-old may not arrive in this country until after the international break.
Celtic have been tracking the promising player, who is not a first team regular at the Maksimir Stadium, since before the Champions League matches with Malmo as they prepared for Van Dijk to move to England.
Zagreb qualified for the Champions League group stages last week after overcoming FK Skerderbeau in the play-off – a success which meant that Simunovic was deemed surplus to requirements.
Simunovic played against Celtic for Zagreb in the Europa League group stages last season and impressed managr Deila with his performances. He will fight with Tyler Blackett, the Manchester United defender who has joined on a season-long loan, for a place in the first team at Parkhead.
Jason Denayer, who enjoyed a successful stint at Celtic last season, has opted to move to Galatasaray in Turkey from Manchester City on loan for the season despite interest from Deila.
Meanwhile, Mark McGhee today predicted Scott Brown and the Celtic contingent in the Scotland side will be desperate to beat Georgia on Friday and put their Champions League exit behind them.
Celtic captain Brown admitted he was “ashamed” after his side lost 2-0 to Malmo in Sweden in the second leg of the Champions League play-off last week to miss out on a place in the group stages.
But McGhee believes the midfielder, who is expected to be fit to play in Tbilisi despite missing training yesterday as a result of the injury he picked up against St. Johnstone at Parkhead on Saturday, will use the disappointment as motivation along with James Forrest and Charlie Mulgrew.
"Knowing Scott, Charlie and James, those boys will be a bit embarrassed,” he said. “No disrespect to Malmo, but Celtic will be embarrassed to lose the way they lost. They will absolutely want to get something back from this, and it is a great opportunity for them to rise above it.
"Scott will be all right. He never trained on Monday, and I'm not sure he will train on Tuesday, but I don't think we have any fears he won't be alright for Friday. It seems he's going to be fine.
"No disrespect to any other player, but there are some players within the squad that we would think ‘that's a shame’, but there are some we do not want to be without. Scott has become one of those players who is one of the first names on the sheet.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel