More details have emerged about Celtic’s interest in Swedish centre-back Gustaf Lagerbielke.
We first heard of the Elfsborg defender on Monday evening, with an Expressen report saying we had bid around £3m for the Allsvenskan break-out star.
Lagerbielke appears to be viewed as a replacement for his compatriot Carl Starfelt who is set to join Celta Vigo in the coming days.
The Monday report came completely out of the blue but there was a general sense that there was something to it.
Now the journalist in question, Anel Avdic, has offered some additional insight to the Daily Record.
Avdic also broke news of Starfelt’s arrival to Glasgow two years ago so he is to be trusted with these kind of transfer stories.
He says: “Celtic have been interested in Gustaf Lagerbielke for a couple of weeks.
“Due to the club’s awareness of the potential sale of Carl Starfelt, they aimed to identify a replacement as quickly as possible.
“With the assistance of Starfelt’s agent, Blash Hosseini, they swiftly became aware of Lagerbielke. Negotiations between the clubs have been ongoing for about a week. We’ll see if the deal can be finalised.”
At around the same time on Tuesday, comments from Elfsborg chief Stefan Andreasson broke.
Speaking to Fotbollskanalen about Celtic’s interest in Lagerbielke, he said: “We have had a dialogue in this case. There is an interest, yes. But we are not in a negotiation.
“Then the club must move from interest to acting powerfully concretely. We are not there right now.”
So a slight contradiction there in the reporting. But we do know for sure that Celtic are interested in Lagerbielke and this is more than just paper talk.
Let’s hope we can get a deal over the line as soon as possible.
In other news, a fresh report has linked Kieran Tierney with a Champions League move
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