Neil Lennon has confirmed his interest in midfielder Kim Bo-Kyung.
The South Korean revealed that he had offers from Celtic, Cardiff City, who have new South Korean owners and Borussia Dortmund.
Confirming the spuculation Bo-Kyung said: “My agent and club officials are currently handling my transfer. I want to play in the UK or Germany. Cardiff and Celtic are places that would enable me to develop.”
Bo-Kyung will be 23 in October and has 13 full caps as well as representing South Korea and u-20 and u-23 level.
After spending part of the 2010/11 season on loan to Second Division Oita Trinita he was recalled by Cerezo Osaka and quickly made his mark as an attacking, goal-scoring midfielder with 8 goals in 27 games.
Confirming Celtic’s interest Lennon said: “He’s a player that we’ve been linked with but there’s nothing more on that just now.
“There will be a lot of players we’ll be linked with but we’ve narrowed it down to a few.
“He’s a creative type of player but there’s nothing more in it right now. We’ve narrowed it down to a few positions and the boys back home are working away at it.”
Ki Sung-Yeung has been the subject of transfer speculation since the end of the season with Liverpool reportedly monitoring his situation.
Ki was the first South Korean to play for Celtic when he moved from FC Seoul in a £2m deal.
With 18 months remaining on his contract Celtic will be keen to get him signed onto a new contract or raise a realistic fee from his transfer before his contract runs down.
CLICK HERE for Clyde call for Regan and Doncaster to walk away
Follow Video Celts on Twitter and Facebook
Would certainly make a statement of intent if the cost as suggested is about £ 6m. I’m sure we would be very thorough in checking the player’s suitability for SPL style football. Still a huge gamble though, especially as the player has intimated he wants to play in Germany / England…better to make his mark in Europe first then think about attracting attention from others.
Willie thats are problem, we have to take a chance with these type of untested young players.
It’s a bit of a hit or miss situation, we have had some misses recently,which is only to be expected, but the hits far out weigh the misses, with the likes of Hooper, Ki, Kayal, Wanwama, Matthews, Ledley and our jewel in the crown Izzy, all players, with great sell on potential.
It’s the only way we can complete in the market.
I still wouldn’t pay £6M for a player who is untested in “British” style football. Its a lot of money on a guy who might not relish a wet Wednesday in January playing Ross County in Dingwall.
You are quite right about the Hits outweighing the Misses, but of the names mentioned, most have some element of understanding of whats expected in Scotland; and/or have cost less than £1M.
£6M on a quality European player, who understands what is expected of them, playing in Scotland is still out of Celtics reach i would say… We should be focusing on the sub £2.5M bracket, with age and likely sell on potential being the crucial aspects.
Just my humble opinion.
I agree PBhoy , I was not suggesting we pay £6M for the player, I realise £6M is away above our range. We have already spent £2M on Foster, prob need to spend another £3-£4 on a few more signings . £1M will be spent on a loan deal prob for a striker,which leaves £2-£3M for a midfielder and defender, thats £6M total.
If we get £7-£8 Million for Ki and Murphy and a few other fringe players, this keeps the Plc happy with £2M in the pot to cover the shortfall from the bigotdomes exit.
dont think theres any chance we’ll get him, celtic wont pay any more than about 3m for a player these days, especially with the wee financial dip about to happen :/ plus i think we should be focussing on more important player roles for us – defenders.
Not good business at 6 million. We have Ki, very good player, has won games by himself. I’ve never had a “Aww no Ki’s playing” feeling. I like him. Let us say we get 7 million for him, which I would accept. Are we really going to spend 6 mill on a question mark player?
Considering Ki is the current South Korean player of the year and the darling of football there, I can’t see Kim would be a good deal at that price. He would have to be at least as good as Ki for it to be good business. My alternative to this deal is to just keep Ki and let his contract expire, we would only lose 1 mill and still have one of our better footballers.
No way will CFC pay £6m for the boy. Undoubtedly talented with a great left foot, but not at that price; even if Ki goes for £7-8million.
Need a quality CB at least and possibly a target man type. If Ki goes the boy Henriksen could fill the void, but how many more midfield players do we need?!
There are several bhoys who were outstanding for the under 19s last season who are knocking at NL’s door: we all know about Tony Watt and Dylan McGeough but I could also mention Callum McGregor, John Herron, Paul George, Marcus Fraser, Jackson Irvine…
HH!!
Ki’s contract does not have 18 months to run. It has 24 months. It expires in the summer of 2014, not January 2014. I don’t know why the media and other people keep reporting it incorrectly. Ki said himself that his contract runs out in the summer of 2014.
BTW. This player will not cost £6 million. He is available in the £2-3 million. Otherwise, Cardiff and ourselves would not be interested, because neither side would spend £6 million on an untested player, or maybe any player. I don’t know where you guys are coming up with £6 million. I know Monaco were rumoured to have offered 6 million euros (not pounds) for him, but that was just a rumour. He will be sold for £2-3 million.
Just to mentiont that Monaco are in Ligue 2 in France. No chance that they would spend €6 million on a player either. So, you guys need to relax and look at this logically. He will not cost anything close to £6 million. Again he will be sold for around what we paid for Ki and what Bolton paid for Lee Chung-Yong, which was £2.2 million.
LOL. I just found where you guys are getting the £6 million fee from. It’s from Hugh Keevins and the Daily Record. Do you guys never learn? Keevins and the Record don’t know dick about Celtic, what players they are after, how much players cost. Keevins is full of shit.
This player will not cost £6 million. Keevins made that up. No Japanese or Korean players has cost that much coming from the J League or the K League. I’m talking about players that are much more established and much better than this guy. He will be avaiable for £2-3 million.
Don’t read the Daily Record, unless you like to be lied to. They know nothing, especially about Celtic and they are confirmed liars. Their reporters are the most ill informed bunch of wasters employed at any newspaper in the world and Hugh Keevins is one of the worst.
He doesn’t know anything about football played outside of Scotland, he doens’t even have a great knowledge of Scottish football. I don’t even think Keevins likes football. He just likes to stick the boot into Celtic. Artur Jorge. Enough said.
Trust me when I say that this player will be available for 2-3 million. However, I hope we don’t sign him. I don’t want us to sign anymore Korean players, because the Korean FA are a bunch of dicks who continually screw over their players’ respective clubs. How many times have Ki and Cha been injured with Korea? How many times do they play in meaningless Korean matches which hinder their ability to play for Celtic? They made Ki fly all the way out there, even though he was sick and he spent the entire time in the hospital. We don’t want to sign anymore Korean players because of that. Not too mention that this player hasn’t served in the Korean army yet either. Stay away from Korean players.
I don’t read the DR(a truly disgusting rag inhabited by ‘peepul’ like Jabba Traynor, Keevins, Waddell, Guidi(a disgrace to the Scots-Italian community), and Jabba’s lapdog-loyal Keech Jackson, who was the one who ‘informed’ everybody that Craig Whyte was a billionaire with wealth ‘off the radar’!
I only mentioned the £6million pound ‘fee’ for Kim because other posters alluded to it, not because I rely on my information regarding CFC on the DR!
HH!!