Celtic suffer blow in bid to sign £8 million midfielder

Celtic have shown a fantastic eye for picking out talent since the arrival of Ange Postecoglou, with the manager thought to be the driving force behind the moves over the past three transfer windows. The club deserve tremendous credit for showing faith in him as well, having brought the Australian in from Yokohama F. Marinos when he was pretty much an unknown in European football and had never even managed a top flight club on the continent.

During Postecoglou’s time at the club, the Hoops have been able to discover stars like Jota, Kyogo, Reo Hatate, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Giorgos Giakoumakis, Liel Abada, and several others. And they surely will be looking to continue strengthening their squad.

One player who has been linked with Celtic recently is 18-year-old Israeli youth international, Oscar Gloukh, who has made quite an impression at Maccabi Tel Aviv. He is believed to be rated at a transfer fee around £8 million. But the Hoops’ hopes of signing him seem to have been handed a blow.

As reported by Sport1 (via Daily Record), Maccabi Tel Aviv have now launched a bid to extend Gloukh’s deal until at least 2025 and “the parties are expected to soon start sitting down on numbers and a contract to try and reach an agreement”. The youngster is said to be enjoying himself at Maccabi Tel Aviv and is in “no rush to run abroad” despite being on Celtic’s radar.

Celtic’s hopes of signing Gloukh from Maccabi Tel Aviv suffer blow

Of course, Celtic are no strangers to signing highly rated youngsters from Israel. A prime example is Abada.

They had pulled off a similar deal for Nir Bitton as well, when he was a youngster and went on to have a long career at Celtic.

Interestingly, Bitton currently plays for Maccabi Tel Aviv and one would hope that he would have had great things to say about his time at Celtic.

Gloukh seems like an exceptional talent and could prove to be a great signing for the Hoops, if they can get a deal done. His current deal is believed to be run till the end of 2023.