Celtic appear to be closing in on the signing of Hatem Abd Elhamed.
A fee believed to be around £2m appears to have been agreed with Hapoel Be’er Sheva for the defender to make the switch to Celtic.
The Daily Record reports:
Celtic are set to complete the signing of Israeli defender Hatem Abd Elhamed after agreeing a £2million fee with Hapoel Be’er Sheva. The 28-year-old will look to provide a solution to boss Neil Lennon’s right back problem after losing Mikael Lustig, Cristian Gamboa and Jeremy Toljan this summer.
Lennon confirmed after Wednesday night’s win over Sarajevo that he should have news on a new arrival within days and the Israel international’s move to Glasgow now looks imminent. Elhamed won his first cap for his country in last month’s European Championship qualifier against Poland where he replaced Hoops star Nir Bitton.
If the deal goes through one of Celtic’s first tasks will be to assess the fitness of the 28-year-old who would be eligible for next week’s Champions League qualifier against Nomme Kalju.
Elhamed made an 8 minute appearance as a substitute on June 10 when Israel lost 4-0 away to Poland in a European Championship qualifier.
Hapoel signed the defender two years ago but after opting out of their Europa League qualifier against Laci of Albania a transfer seems inevitable.
There has been no update on the report on Wednesday night that former Leicester City defender Danny Simpson will be on trial at Celtic next week.
Good price, wrong time to sell.https://t.co/UTt38zCd3v
— Joe McHugh (@videocelts) July 19, 2019