Ivan Toney has revealed that he visited Celtic’s training ground in the summer before joining Brentford in a deal initially worth £5.04m to Brentford.
Due to a number of reasons signing a striker was a priority for Celtic. There was speculation that Odsonne Edouard was looking to move while Leigh Griffiths came back from Lockdown badly out of shape- a disgrace as he later put it.
Celtic had been linked with Toney before Gavin Strachan switched from assistant manager at Peterborough to become first team coach under Neil Lennon.
With a year left on his contract Peterborough were keen to sell their top scorer with Barry Fry in full salesman mode as he kept the media upto date with every sniff of interest.
Celtic amounted to more than speculation, picking up on his appearance on TalkSPORT this morning, The 72 reports Toney saying:
It was actually very close [a move to Celtic]. I went up there, spoke to everybody, I was actually at the training ground looking around, so it got to them stages. But I just don’t think they were too keen on signing me. But I guess it’s their miss now.
For whatever reasons Toney opted for Brentford as Celtic signed up Albian Ajeti. No one can say for definite how things would have worked out if Celtic had agreed a deal for the former Peterborough striker but with 29 goals from 39 Championships appearances there is bound to be EPL interest in Toney this summer.
CLICK HERE for Toney profile on Transfermarkt