Exactly my thoughts, potentially all these stories are generated by the agent putting his name out there to attract interest or by Celtic trying to drive up his price and attract interest.
If true, it's a good job by somebody at Celtic to get more than twice the market value for a player in his final year of contract.
According to an article in the Pinkun it appears that it was Stieps decision to terminate his contract and he was “glad the club accepted”. He is believed to be suffering the long covid effects and was also hit with Epstein Barr virus. He says he wanted to go home and get healthy with his family rather than sit in Norwich and see out his contract. Got to praise him for that incredibly hard decision and for ultimately choosing his health over financial gain
I wonder what shape Klose is in as a backup CB, but I would feel happier with another defender on the books
So the answer is to recruit a player from an even smaller country which didn't manage to qualify for the Euros and who doesn't have any previous PL experience and pay an inflated price for the privilege.....
Let's see if I can create a rumour.... https://www.sports-nova.com/2021/07/14/chelsea-youngsters-poised-to-leave-the-club/ Chelsea have a quartet of young prospects who are out of contract and reluctant to sign extensions, despite Chelsea wanting them to - basically because they don't trust the youth development process at Chelsea any more. They want first team opportunities and don't believe they'll get it at Chelsea. 19 year old centre back Dynel Simeu is poised to sign with a Premier League club shortly. Simeu has no first team experience to speak of, but if you're looking for a Premier League club prepared to give young defenders first team opportunities, I'm sure Godfrey, Lewis, Aarons, Omobamidele would make a persuasive case...
You could have explained that more plainly for the less discerning like me DH! Good rumour in that case.
£13m for a centre hack that came 2nd to Rangers by a country mile doesn't seem like a good move. Rangers can't even afford to buy McLean Hanley with his Premier league class status would be beyond Celtic or Rangers reach
Is Livingston still in existence? According to the Scottish Sun "Dave Martindale has warned Scotland faces a player crisis after shutting down Livingston". Barden played for them on 3rd July but can find no news since.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sp...on-martindale-scottish-football-crisis-covid/ I think it's a Covid isolation thing, not financial issues. Barden made his debut two days ago in a 3-0 win.
... I obviously have greater respect than you Rick for the collective judgement of the recruitment teams at Brentford, at Benham's Danish club, Midtjylland (who contribute to Brentford's recruitment process), and Celtic.
It might sound odd, but I don’t see how this all relates to Ajer’s quality (or otherwise). If it turns out he’s a brilliant defender like the next Van Dijk, fine, we will have missed out on him (do you remember when we were quite heavily linked with some winger playing in Switzerland called Mohamed Salah…) and I’ll be a bit disappointed. But it doesn’t mean our scouting team is bad or Brentford’s is brilliant. It’s pretty clear we were interested in him. So actually our respective scouting teams are basically on the same page. All it means is that we felt the price wasn’t right and they did. So what? Well, we’re the only self-funding club in the Premier League. This is how it works, there will be some risks our board judges they cannot afford. And let’s face it they’ve of course made some mistakes but overall I’d say in the last four years they’re definitely doing alright on recruitment (though admittedly they excelled more at bringing on youngsters). The Ajer deal wasn’t right, so what, we move on.
Post-match, Farke emphasised that he's expecting plenty of activity in the transfer market. Basically every position other than goalkeeper, including a mention of the full back position. CB, full back, two midfielders and a forward seems to be the shopping list.
Aarons rumoured to be a target for Spanish Champions Athletico Madrid. So that’s at least six European clubs expressing interest and yet he is still at CR.Is this the longest running transfer rumour ever? I don’t want to see this player move, as most of NCFC fans agree, but this has dragged on for months
