The Northern Ireland international has drifted down the Parkhead pecking order in recent seasons.

 

 

Plymouth are closing in on a six-figure deal to sign Conor Hazard.

The newly-promoted English Championship outfit have agreed a fee, with future add-ons, with Celtic. The Northern Irish international is keen to kick on with his career and to get regular first-team football. The 25-year-old has come through the Celtic academy and has been at the club for nine years. Joe Hart, Scott Bain and Benjaming Siegrist are all ahead of him for the gloves at Celtic. Hazard was a final hero when Celtic lifted the 2019-20 Scottish Cup.

The majority of his playing time at Celtic has come via loans away from the Scottish Premiership champions. Hazard has had domestic loans at Falkirk, Partick Thistle and Dundee twice. The goalkeeper also had a successful loan in Finland with HJK Helsinki last year – where he was named the league’s top shot-stopper after helping the club to the league title.

 

 

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Forest Green Rovers announced Hannah Dingley as their first team coach.

 

 

Plymouth Argyle will be one of the first opponents that a female football manager will face in the men’s professional game after Forest Green Rovers announced Hannah Dingley as their first team coach.

Rovers, relegated from League One last season, parted company with manager Duncan Ferguson on Tuesday after less than six months in charge at the New Lawn and they wasted no time in finding a successor with Dingley promoted from her role as head of the Gloucestershire club’s academy in an interim basis.

The move makes her the first woman to take over a men’s team and she will be in the dug-out leading Forest Green when Rovers head to Plymouth for a friendly against Argyle at Home Park on Saturday, July 22.

Anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out welcomed the news in a tweet yesterday morning which read: “That’s the sound of a glass ceiling being smashed! Congratulations Hannah on becoming the first woman to manage a men’s professional football team in England.”

Hannah said: “I’m really excited for this next step of my career. Pre-season has just begun, and the full season kicks off very soon. It’s an exciting time in football. I am grateful for the opportunity to step up and lead such a progressive and forward-thinking club.”

Rovers chairman Dale Vince has spoken previously about the club’s openness to breaking new ground, and said a female coach working in the Women’s Super League was the standout candidate to succeed Mark Cooper in 2021, but that her CV had been submitted without her knowledge. On Dingley’s appointment, Vince said: “Hannah was the natural choice for us to be first team interim coach – she’s done a fantastic job leading our academy and is well aligned with the values of the club.

“It’s perhaps telling for the men’s game that in making this appointment on merit, we’ll break new ground – and Hannah will be the first female head coach in English (men’s) football.”

The EFL’s head of equality, diversity and inclusion Dave McArdle described Dingley’s appointment as a “welcome moment for English football” and added: “With many highly skilled and experienced coaches across the game, it was only a matter of time before the ongoing positive development of female coaches led to an opportunity in the first team at an EFL club.”

The Pilgrims are also being linked with a move for Swedish striker Isac Lidberg, according to reports. The 24-year-old frontman plays for Go Ahead Eagles in the Dutch Eredivisie and he has scored 11 times in 65 outings, having joined them in May 2021 from Swedish third tier side Gefle IF.

Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham City are also keen on his services, according to Voetbal International, while there is also interest from France side Auxerre, German outfit St Pauli and OH Leuven of Belgium.