Sky Sports names Ghanaian defender linked with January move to Celtic
Celtic have bizarrely been linked with signing another centre half!
In January Yuki Kobayashi joined the hoops, during the summer Gus Lagerbielke and Maik Nawrocki were signed up with Liam Scales returning from a season on loan at Aberdeen.
Last week Brendan Rodgers spoke of his expectation for more players to go out than come in during the January transfer window with 33 players featuring in the official first team photograph.
Nathaniel Adjei, an u-23 Ghana internationalist is impressing at Hammarby, with the Swedish season coming to an end he is expecting to be transferred with the Sky Sports rolling Transfer Blog reporting at 17.10 yesterday:
Rangers and Celtic are among a host of clubs monitoring Hammarby centre-back Nathaniel Adjei.
The 21-year-old has had a breakthrough season in Sweden, including making his European debut, after being promoted to the first team by now QPR boss Marti Cifuentes.
Teams in Belgium and Italy also hold an interest in Adjei while a Rangers representative has been to watch the player in person last month.
Adjei is likely to assess his options once the Swedish season finishes in the middle of November with a potential January move a possible outcome.
The Hammarby defender seems to have very similar experience to Lagerbielke who hasn’t had any game time since being sent off away to Feyenoord in the Champions League.
With Liam Scales now established as the preferred partner to Cameron Carter-Vickers and Nawrocki costing Celtic £4.3m during the summer it seems that central defence is already an area of the side that the hoops are very well covered in.
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Rodgers provides an update on the Celtic contract deadlock.
Brendan Rodgers wants David Turnbull signed upto a new Celtic contract but the fine detail is out of his hands.
Michael Nicholson will try to agree terms with the player’s agent but if a deal can’t be worked out then Mark Lawwell will come into play with replacement plans.
Turnbull has started four SPFL Premiership games this season but is in that delicate period with his contract up at the end of this season.
A lucrative deal could be waiting elsewhere but probably not with a club with the profile of Celtic and prospects of success.
Against that the former Motherwell man has dropped out of the Scotland squad with international recognition a big attraction with Steve Clarke taking the national squad out of the wilderness years.
Discussing Turnbull’s situation with The Sun, Rodgers said:
There have been talks with his agent and the club, I believe, but I’m not sure what the latest on that is.
For us, David is a player we would like to keep, so it’s not us here on the club side. He has to do what he thinks is right for himself.
At this moment in time, he is still in the last year of his contract. For me, unless something changes, it is just a case of seeing the players giving their all.
It only becomes a problem if I don’t see the intensity that I want, the mentality that I want. That’s always something I am mindful of with players in the last year of their contracts.
You have to be right on it, otherwise you can drift very easily, and think about other things. As manager I won’t let that happen, no matter how good anyone is.
Those final comments seem like a little warning to Turnbull but after starting against St Mirren in midweek he must be figuring somewhere in his manager’s plans.
Turnbull’s Celtic career has been something of a whirlwind after his initial move in the summer of 2019 was halted after a medical.
A year later the deal was completed but the player found himself frozen out for four months as Celtic collapsed in the Lockdown season.
Initially a key player under Ange Postecoglou, things came to a halt when Turnbull suffered a bad hamstring injury in the final of the League Cup, with Matt O’Riley and Reo Hatate signing a month later the former Motherwell man has been battling to get back into the Starting XI ever since.
With UEFA requiring four players developed by SFA clubs in Champions League squads it is unlikely that Celtic would find a replacement that meets that criteria.
