Celtic have a million problems right now. One of them is the fact that the club have not been able to replace the players who have left in recent years. When you think about that, you think of players like Kyogo Furuhashi, Matt O'Riley and Nicolas Kuhn. Jota was on that list until he made a return earlier this year, but an injury has kept him sidelined for months.
Another name that falls under that category is Greg Taylor. That is remarkable, considering Celtic were able to bring back Kieran Tierney in the summer.
Unfortunately, Tierney has not been able to replace Taylor. It is all about fitting into a role in the modern game, and it looks like the latter might have been better in this particular system.
Taylor left in the summer to join PAOK, with his contract at Celtic expiring. But at one point in time, there were heavy rumours about him crossing the Glasgow divide and joining the Rangers. How close did he actually come to such a move though?
Celtic hero confirms how close he was to joining Rangers
As it turns out, despite the speculation, such a move was never actually close. That has been confirmed by Taylor himself. As reported by Football Transfers, he said on Premier Sports’ Scottish Football Social Club:
"I can answer it… I was not close to Rangers! There’s no silence! I was not close, let’s get that in there.
“It’s nice that people miss you and respect what you did because there were definitely periods in my career at Celtic where people didn’t think I was up to it or wished for someone else. That’s the truth of the matter. So it’s nice to feel that way but equally it’s now a period that’s done."
Well, it is good to see that Taylor has cleared that up. Such a move would have been very controversial to say the least and it would have had an impact on his legacy at Celtic for sure.
Taylor was not always a fan favourite at Celtic, there is no doubt about that. Often, a large section of the fanbase believed that he was the weak link in the team. But he was able to enjoy six successful years playing for the Hoops and proved a lot of critics wrong in the process of doing so. We wish him all the best.