Celtic’s quest to sign Mitchel Bakker isn’t completely over despite the player telling people he wants to fight for his place at Paris Saint-Germain, The Daily Record has reported this week.
Bakker is said to prefer a stay in Ligue 1 despite being behind Juan Bernat and Layvin Kurzawa in the pecking order at the French giants.
However, The Record believe there is still a chance of a Celtic move and that the Dutch U21 squad player is to have talks on his future with manager Thomas Tuchel.
Celtic are on the hunt for a left-back after the drama involving Boli Bolingoli.
Greg Taylor is currently carrying the load in the position but he can’t play every game and there are question marks about his suitability when playing in a 3-5-2 formation, which many fans want Neil Lennon to deploy.
Bakker doesn’t have much senior experience but has already played in two national cup finals with PSG and appears ready to get week-to-week action.
He’d be well advised to look for that with a loan move elsewhere given the talents available to Tuchel across the coming season.
Kurzawa’s new contract this summer is surely a major roadblock for Bakker to get the minutes he wants.
Whether Celtic can convince him of a switch to the Scottish Premiership is another matter but, in my mind, it’d be an exciting signing and solves a positional problem on a budget.
That could allow us to divert resources towards a more expensive signing in another position, backing up the excellent work that the recruitment team have done so far during this window.
Hopefully this one progresses further over the next couple of weeks as Bakker returns from international duty to consider his future in France.
In other news, Aaron Hickey has explained why he’s chosen to make the switch to Bologna.
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