Neil Lennon has this afternoon cooled talk of James Forrest to Zenit St Petersburg.
A story in the Scottish Sun broke late last night that the Russians were readying an offer of £12million for the Scotland international. A deal was supposedly being prepped for Forrest to earn £70k-per-week with Zenit too.
It follows similar lines to the story that broke several weeks ago about Zenit apparently looking at a £9m bid for Tom Rogic (Scottish Sun). That didn’t come to fruition, and it doesn’t look as if the Forrest one will either.
That’s because Celtic boss Lennon has today been speaking about the topic. And, in comments quoted by the Daily Record from his press conference today, Lennon denied there has been any concrete interest from Zenit.
“He is another one that we don’t want to go. A big player, a big goalscorer. He has been here a long, long time. He is under contract.
“There is no confirmation of that (Zenit St Petersburg interest), it is just speculation, but it doesn’t surprise me. However, from my point of view we want James here and he is happy here as well.
“It’s important to hold on to your better players, we have already sold one so we don’t want to sell any more. We are looking to add to the squad rather than selling any more of our important players and James certainly falls into that category.”
James Forrest to Zenit would make next to no sense
Zenit isn’t exactly a step-up from Parkhead. The Russian Premier League is hardly much to shout about, whilst Celtic have qualified for the Champions League more than Zenit over the last four years.
In addition to that, he would be missing out on so much at Celtic too. The potential 10-in-a-row must mean so much to a player like Forrest – a player who’s been here ever since we got our first of the consecutive run.
We’ve also lost count of the number of times that Forrest has asked Celtic to deal him in. It was only as recently as last week that he was encouraging a Parkhead stay (The Scotsman).
It’s getting to the stage now with Forrest where you’re starting to wonder whether he’ll truly be a one-club man. He has both the quality and commitment to do it, and he doesn’t appear to be looking any further than Glasgow with regards to his footballing future.
The fact Lennon hasn’t heard anything is good news too. It means nothing concrete has come in. Zenit have until September 2nd to bring new players to Russia (FIFA). Therefore, this could easily be the start of yet another saga. But it’s something we could do without over the course of several important weeks for the football club.
As it stands, it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere for now. Hopefully, it doesn’t turn into a battle to make it stay that way.
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