CELTIC want to sign players this summer who will help them qualify for the Champions League.

Many of these targets would ideally prefer to wait until the European matter has been decided before making any commitment.

So it's something of a dilemma for Ronny Deila and Peter Lawwell. How do they convince a player of real substance on a move to the club by promising them Champions League football some three two-legged qualifying matches before that could be achieved?

Either you throw bags of money at them - which they won't do - or you select a player for whom moving to Celtic would be viewed by them as a step-up regardless of what European competition they might get to play in in August.

If someone genuinely top class is to be secured before the first qualifier in mid-July, they would need to uncover a player good enough to play in the world's premier European tournament against the planet's best footballers but who is not conceited enough to think himself too good to sign for a team that cannot 100 per cent guarantee him access to that stage.

This is why Ikechi Anya is on Celtic's radar. The Scotland winger is talented enough and at the same time is a grounded individual who has not always found football to be easy, so dealing with this lack of ego could help with negotiations

The Scottish champions would be looking at a fee of between £3-£4million for the player, which is well within their budget, as would be his wages. Some Championship clubs pay their players fortunes; Watford is not one of them.

So the money side is manageable. It would be then a case of persuading the 27-year-old to give up on the Premier League, Watford won promotion last season, to play in Scottish football. This is not something that would float the boat of everyone.

However, Anya is not as admired by Watford fans as he is among Scotland supporters. Not that he has done badly at Vicarage Road - far from it - but his form is inconsistent which is probably why with a year left on his contract, the newly promoted club have offered no hint at all that they want to extend his deal.

This is why Celtic have a more than decent chance of signing the boy from Castlemilk who at 19 was stacking shelves while playing non-league football after being told by the might of Wycombe Wanderers that he wasn't good enough to make it.

Someone who did think he was good enough was former England manager Glenn Hoddle who took the teenager to his academy in Spain, where young players without a club are given a chance to train in a bid to get themselves a new club. His recollection is of a lad who thought his chance had come and gone before his 20th birthday.

Speaking last year, Hoddle said: "We had to work on giving him some self-belief. He couldn't see in himself what we could see and many of the lads down there were like that, given that their confidence had taken a big knock from being rejected.

"Hopefully, we made him realise he had the talent - but he was the one who put the hard work in. He had the hunger and wanted to do it and just needed re-shaping a little mentally and tactically. He was always ready to listen and take advice on board.

"One day we played against Sevilla's B team and drew 1-1 and he absolutely tore them apart. They instantly wanted to have a look at him again. He went back for another game and again looked incredible; so they signed him on a two-year contract and he became the first player to leave the academy with a professional contract."

Deila, the Celtic manager, likes his teams to run, run some more and then do a bit of running. It's why he signed Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Armstrong in January. Anya is his kind of player, full of energy and with an ability to create something out of nothing but who doesn't mind tracking back

Celtic under the Norwegian have operated best in a 4-2-3-1. It would be an exciting prospect for Celtic fans to watch the Scotland man on the left wing with Stefan Johansen playing inside him.

If this deal could be done, it just might be the best Celtic coup for some time.