MARTIN ODEGAARD has branded talk of a loan move from Real Madrid to Celtic as "speculation".
The 16-year-old met Ronny Deila, his former Stromsgodset coach and current manager of the SPFL Premiership champions, at a match during a trip back to Norway two weeks ago with the rumour mill going into overdrive afterwards over what was spoken about between them.
Deila tried to convince the attacking midfielder to join him at Parkhead before his £2.3m transfer to Real Madrid was completed in January and would almost certainly be interested should the Spanish club opt to farm him out for first-team experience.
However, Odegaard, currently on international duty with Norway for the visit of Euro 2016 rivals Azerbaijan, insists he was not made any kind of proposal by Deila when they met in the stand at a league match between Stromsgodset and Lillestrom in Drammen.
"This is just speculation," he said. "We talked. Sure we did.
"It's quite natural when we meet."
When asked if Deila had tried to sell him on a move to Celtic, Odegaard replied: "No, he did not."
Malaga, Real Betis and Villarreal have all been mentioned as possible destinations for Odegaard should the new Real Madrid manager, Rafael Benitez, decided to place him out on loan during the coming months.
However, reports in Spain state that Celtic are at the top of the waiting list. Benitez is expected to monitor Odegaard over the course of pre-season and make a decision before the start of the new Primera Division campaign.
Deila gave Odegaard his senior debut for Stromsgodset at the age of 14 and spoke about the possibility of securing him on a temporary deal in future when his transfer to Real Madrid was initially signed and sealed.
"You never know in football," he said. "We want to loan players that have a big impact on the team like Jason Denayer.
"Martin and his father called me the day they chose Real Madrid. I hoped to get him to Celtic, of course, but I knew it was going to be hard with all the options."
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 hereComments are closed on this article