Chris Wilder makes Riley McGree claim amid Celtic transfer saga

Chris Wilder is a manager who had linked with the Celtic job in the summer before the club ended up appointing Ange Postecoglou. And considering how things have turned out since then, it is safe to say that most fans would be happy with how things turned out, as the Hoops have won the Scottish League Cup and appear to be gearing up for a Premiership title challenge in the second half of the season.

On the other hand, Wilder is currently the Middlesbrough manager and is aiming to guide his side towards the Premier League.

Recently, there has been a transfer saga involving the two clubs though. It has been rumoured that Australian international, Riley McGree, was closing in on a move to Celtic before Middlesbrough came in with a bigger offer.

McGree has joined the Championship club since then but Wilder does not believe that it had anything to do with the size of the offer. As reported by Football Scotland, the Middlesbrough manager said:

"“There is a lot of nonsense being written which I need to get to the bottom of in terms of blowing other clubs out of the water with fees and in terms of wages.“That’s not just with Riley, that’s with Flo [Balogun] and with Aaron Connolly too.“We’ve been into these players for a while now and we’ve understood the deals and situations, and as happens, these boys have other clubs coming in for them.“But genuinely, if you ask those three players where they wanted to come and where they wanted to be, they’ve got their opinion.“You can say, of course they’re going to say that, but I genuinely believe they do want to be here, especially in Riley’s case.”"

McGree has joined Middlesbrough despite links with Celtic

McGree is someone that Postecoglou is expected to know well from his time as the Australian national team manager. In fact, he had given the midfielder his first international call up back when he was a teenager.

McGree proved himself in the Championship recently while on loan at Birmingham City and he was one of their best players for a while now.

Thus, while some eyebrows were raised about Celtic being linked with another midfielder despite signing Reo Hatate and Yosuke Ideguchi this month, it is safe to say that the potential was clear to see when it comes to McGree.

Unfortunately, the move has not happened. It remains to be seen though whether the Hoops end up targeting any other midfielders in January or whether it was McGree in particular that they had wanted to bring in.