Ange Postecoglou has gone into depth about the prospect of players leaving Celtic in the final week of the transfer window.
When players are mentioned, it really breaks down to Odsonne Edouard and Ryan Christie, the Frenchman is under contract till June 2021 with Christie a free agent in January.
There doesn’t appear to have been any full bids put in for either player but Christie is currently at liberty to sign a deal to join any non-Scottish club.
It is an awkward situation for Postecoglou to balance, both players are contributing to Celtic’s successful run but they aren’t committed to the long term with the money men possibly facing losing two players worth £20m for nothing over the next 12 months.
The Australian was complimentary about both players but has his own form of tough-love that won’t see arm-twisting to convince anyone to reluctantly stay on at Celtic.
Asked about Liam Scales joining from Shamrock Rovers or bringing in more players before next week’s transfer deadline, the Celtic boss said:
10 minutes:
We are still working hard to bring in one or two, absolutely. The tricky part about this end of the window is you kind of don’t know what outgoings you are going to have which might affect things.
We’ve got contingency plans in place and we’re talking to a number of targets to see what business we can do. We still need one or two more in the group for sure and that’s what we’ll do.
What positions? Again, that may depend a little bit on who may or may not be leaving. And on that front there is nothing really concrete that has happened yet, so. I expect, if anything is going to move it will start moving in the next few days.
Asked specifically about Edouard and Christie he added:
I don’t think that it will affect these two fixtures (Alkmaar and Ibrox). You know, I said at the outset that I’m not going to try to coerce or influence players to stay in they don’t want to stay.
But what I will do is treat everyone as if they are part of this football club. As long as they are and provided they show the commitment to what we want to do. I think Ryan and Odsonne have been outstanding in that, you can’t tell me that they look like players who don’t want to be here.
Irrespective of what their immediate futures hold they are contributing every day. Not just in games but in training. You know, if that continues I’d be delighted to keep them for as long as they want to stay here but at the same time they are all masters of their own futures, their own destinies. I think that it is important that they make these decisions that are good for themselves.
