Celtic are poised to sign Jason Denayer from Manchester City.
The hoops have been in contact with City and are also believed to be interested in Matthias Bossaerts as Ronny Delia seeks to strengthen his first team squad.
Both of the City defenders are from Belgium with Denayer likened to a young Vincent Kompany- who played against Celtic as a 17-year-old for Anderlecht.
Celtic and City have built up strong relations in recent years after playing each other in the Next Gen tournament in the 2011/12 season.
Deila is keen to strengthen his defence and moved quickly when City gave him encouragement over taking the defenders on loan.
Nineteen-year-old Denayer was in the City squad that played pre-season games against Dundee and Hearts last month and stayed with the first team for their trip to the USA.
In a recent interview on the City website he said: “I enjoyed the run-out against Dundee because I was playing alongside Dedryck Boyata, who is obviously a fellow Belgian and someone I know well. He helped me a lot as did Aleksandar Kolarov and it was enjoyable to be part of it all.
“As for the coming season, ideally I would like to train with the first-team as much as possible and maybe be involved in one or two cup games this season. If I can play more for the Belgium Under-21s as well, it will have been a very good year for me.”
Denayer initially played for Anderlecht but left it to join the Jean-Marc Guillou academy that nurtured the Toure brothers and has modeled his game on Kompany.
“It wasn’t easy to begin with but I feel I’ve settled well over the past year and everything is good now,” he said, speaking last month. “Vincent Kompany speaks to me a lot and if he sees something in training he thinks I can do better, he always lets me know – and he also lets me know if I do something well, too, which is really important. I want to learn as much as I can from him and the rest of the first-team squad.”
The deadline for signing, and registering, players for the Champions League qualifier with Maribor was at 11pm Celtic Park time tonight. One further signing can be added 48 hours before the first leg tie in Slovenia.
