As sure as night follows day, almost immediately after Celtic lift the Scottish Premiership trophy, a transfer rumour emerges about one of our top players.
The Trophy Day celebrations hadn’t even ended when The Scottish Sun reported that three English Premier League clubs were ‘leading’ the race to sign Celtic hero, Matt O’Riley.
The report claims that Everton, West Ham and Brighton are all seriously interested in O’Riley with Roberto De Zerbi’s south coast side apparently the front runners.
Now, considering De Zerbi will be leaving Brighton at the end of the season [Sky Sports], that would make that rumour a little difficult to believe as any new manager coming into that club may not see O’Riley as part of his plans.
However, that’s not the main reason that O’Riley could very well reject all these clubs and stay with Celtic beyond the summer.
New Champions League format could ‘sway’ O’Riley’s Celtic decision
We discussed yesterday how the Celtic midfielder was asked about his future and O’Riley admitted he would find it really difficult to leave the club and after Mark Wilson’s argument about why the Celtic idol could stay beyond this summer, then this recent transfer story shouldn’t really worry the Hoops’ support.
Wilson said [Superscoreboard], “I think one thing that sits in Celtic’s favour is this reformed Champions League.
“So if you’re Matt O’Riley and it isn’t an Atletico Madrid, if it’s a team who’s not in this Champions League, perhaps there is an argument that Matt O’Riley really wants to be part of this new format.
“I think a lot of players will be interested to see how this pans out, this Champions League format.
“Perhaps if he goes elsewhere or if it’s a Premiership club in England who have not qualified, then you might never get that chance.
“That could be the argument that that sways him for another year. And the same goes for Hatate.
“But there’s no doubt in my mind there’s going to be bids coming in. I know everybody expects there to be bids and sometimes that doesn’t quite materialise.
“Maybe didn’t come in January for him but I think Celtic will be preparing themselves to hear bids coming in for a couple of their players.”
The new format is being eagerly awaited by fans of all clubs and it will be interesting to see how the completion pans out next season.
And, as Wilson says, unless a team that’s qualified for it comes in, O’Riley could very well stay put as his love for the club and his ambition to test himself in the Champions League could be too much to give up to settle for a mid-table English Premier League side.
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