Celtic have been credited with an interest in Hajduk Split defender Mario Vuskovic by prominent Italian journalist Nicolo Schira.
Torino are also keen on the player, while Napoli enquired about his services in the past.
Schira reports that Celtic put forward an ‘official bid’ of €5M, which is more than £4.3m at the current exchange rate.
The bid is said to have been rejected by the Croatian side, so he’s clearly valued very highly.
Vuskovic has broken through as a regular in the Croatian top-flight this season, making 22 league appearances this term. That’s part of a 36-game total for his club over the past few years. [Transfermarkt]
He’s represented his country for dozens of U17 and U19 matches. The centre-half has now established himself at U21 level, featuring in recent matches against England, Switzerland and Portugal.
Celtic making a multi-million-pound bid would be something of a surprise considering we don’t have a permanent manager in place.
However, the club have completed the pre-contract signing of Liam Shaw and recently sold Patryk Klimala in a big-money move to New York Red Bulls.
Someone has the authority to make big transfer decisions at the club.
Celtic need defenders and Mario Vuskovic fits the profile
Although he doesn’t have much experience, Vuskovic does fit the buy low, improve and sell for a profit profile that Celtic like to leverage. He’ll have his eye on being a future international with a quality side and getting in early on his talent makes sense.
Celtic also badly need first-team defenders with Shane Duffy heading back to Brighton, Kristoffer Ajer potentially being sold and Christopher Jullien out with a long-term injury.
The position needs to be addressed, and quickly, even if it’s not Vuskovic who ends up making a move to Glasgow.
Nobody wants to go into another set of European qualifiers with a makeshift defence.
In other news, commercial life at Celtic is getting back to normal after pleasing double update.
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