Bristol City have enforced a 12 month option on Niclas Eliasson’s contract tying him to the Championship side until June 2021.
The winger was linked with a move to Celtic last month but in a situation similar to Scott Sinclair his club has taken up the option to extend his current deal.
Bristol City would rather have given the Swede a brand new long term deal but have turned to their 12 month option rather than see the winger quit for free at the end of this season.
Bristol Live reports:
And interest is continuing to grow in Niclas Eliasson too. The winger is reportedly interesting Lazio, Burnley, Celtic and others and more clubs will join the race before the summer.
But the chances of retaining another Lee Johnson-developed player are not good: Bristol Live understands that Eliasson is not currently willing to sign a new long-term deal in BS3.
The club’s one-year option has been taken up while the Robins are hopeful that a new deal may yet be agreed and the winger’s long-term future secured at Ashton Gate.
However, our information is that Eliasson will not renew with the Robins as it stands and is likely to leave the club in the summer unless promotion is achieved. Effectively the winger has 18 months left on his deal, forcing the hand of the Bristol City board come the end of the season – as has been the case previously with Reid, Bryan and Brownhill – in that unless a new deal is agreed the player will be sold on for a sizeable profit.
While promotion is still a possibility this campaign, more likely is that a club swoops in the summer when Eliasson has just a year to go on his deal.
Head coach Lee Johnson recently explained how much he would love to keep the Bristol City winger, who has three league goals this season and a league-high 10 assists.
Johnson told Bristol Live recently: “The way I would see it is he has 18 months on his contract but we would absolutely love it for him to sign a new contract. We value him hugely.
We’re discussing, he’s changed agents, but we’ve been sitting down and talking about it since the start of the summer but then agents change, other priorities come in between that. But the simple stance is we’d love him to stay longer. In any negotiations it takes time but currently he has 18 months on his contract and we’d love to see it extended,” he said last month.
Celtic were linked with Christian Atsu on the final day of the transfer window with a report emerging last week of interest in Josh Murphy of Cardiff.
In recent seasons the hoops have been very aware of contract options allowing them to sign players like Moussa Dembele on cut-price deals.
As a kid Eliasson skipped the Swedish winters, heading to Brazil which has done his career no harm, as a teenager he visited Celtic for a spell as a trialist.
CLICK HERE for Eliasson on his Celtic trial