With less than two weeks of the transfer window to go, the Celtic transfer rumours seem to be ramping up over the last couple of days.
It has been suggested that Brendan Rodgers holds an interest in bringing Wolves winger, Daniel Podence, to the club after reports yesterday claimed that Celtic were ‘following‘ the player’s current situation.
Earlier this morning I told how John Hartson believed that Podence to Celtic is a deal that he thought could happen but to do that, the Hoops need to overcome two major obstacles.
Firstly, the £12m fee is one that Celtic will not pay for a 27-year-old. If we were to move him on in a few years time, the resale value wouldn’t be anywhere near what the club had paid for him and it would mean making a material shift from our current transfer policy.
Initial reports yesterday suggested that Wolves wouldn’t be willing to budge from their £12m valuation of the player [Football Scotland] but Sky Sports’, Anthony Joseph tweeted last night that Celtic believe there is ‘room for negotiation’ surrounding the asking price.
So it seems that even before Celtic get the chance to speak to the player, work is needing done by both clubs to reach an agreement on a fee even though Podence is into his last year of his contract.
The next hurdle would, obviously, be the players wages. Being in the English Premier League means that the Portuguese winger will be on a hefty salary.
In fact, football finance website, Capology, states that Podence’ confirmed weekly wage is £60k per week at Wolves. With the best will in the world, Celtic will not match that and Podence would need to agree to a hefty cut if he was interested in making the move to Glasgow.
So although the link to Podence has created some excitement amongst the Celtic fans, expectations may well need to be tempered as there is plenty of hard work and negotiating needing done before any kind of deal can get over the line.
In other news, James McPake explains Celtic’s stance when he tried to sign Ben Summers on loan last season
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