Celtic seemed set to finally offload Marco Tilio.
The Aussie winger was signed in 2023 by Brendan Rodgers from Melbourne City, but it was pretty clear pretty quickly that Tilio was not Celtic standard.
He’s only featured twice competitively for the Hoops and has spent most of his time as a contracted Celtic player on loan to Melbourne City.
The transfer listed Tilio came back to Lennoxtown in the summer and was handed minutes by Rodgers across several pre-season games.
Celtic then found a suitor in SK Rapid Wien and agreed a loan deal with an obligation to buy next summer. But that agreed deal is now in doubt.
Rapid Wien push Celtic to sanction Tilio exit
Celtic have pushed the pause button on the loan to buy deal because they currently don’t have enough wingers in their squad.
Jota is injured and Nicolas Kuhn was sold, with Celtic yet to bring in replacements for that area.
And that has prompted a frustrated response from Rapid Wien, with Sky Sports reporter Anthony Joseph claiming the Austrians are pressuring Celtic to give the deal the green light.
Joseph wrote on X: “Rapid Vienna are putting pressure on Celtic to green-light a move for Marco Tilio before they move on to other targets.
“They’ve agreed a £350k loan deal, with an obligation to buy for £1.3m, but Celtic have since paused the move as they look for a winger.”
Embarrassing situation for Celtic
With just a month left to go in the transfer window, Celtic are in a poor position.
They can’t afford to offload one of their weakest wingers because doing so would leave the squad with just James Forrest, Yang Hyun-jun and Daizen Maeda.
Benjamin Nygren can play out wide, but it’s clear from pre-season that his best position is in the No.8 slot alongside Reo Hatate.
Celtic need to get their act together fast. Rodgers wants deals done but it seems the club are not confident business can be conducted if they are not willing to let Tilio leave as it stands.
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