Celtic have ruled out a permanent move to Aberdeen for Liam Scales.
The defender made his Dons debut in a friendly against Buckie Thistle at the weekend with Scotland internationalist Declan Gallagher moved out to accommodate the Irishman.
Celtic paid Shamrock Rovers around £500,000 last August to sign Scales who was in and around Ange Postecoglou’s squad until the Europa Conference tie away to Bodo Glimt in February.
It would seem unlikely that Aberdeen could match the fee that Celtic paid out for Scales but speaking to The Sun Jim Goodwin was keen to discuss that option.
I’m a big fan of the loan market as it gives you the opportunity to sign players that you would maybe not normally be able to afford.
The size of club we are we want to be signing players on permanent contracts. That conversation was had with Celtic initially.
We wanted to know what the number was and could we make it happen. Celtic are not willing to sell Liam at this moment. That’s fair enough because he is their player, and he is on a long-term contract until 2025.
Certainly we will enter into those discussions in January if Liam has the kind of success we expect him to have here.
Hopefully he is enjoying his time at Aberdeen and will want to sign on with us. That is by the by just now.
The players that we have signed are good ones. We need to use the loan market as we see fit and we’ll do that.
After the ups and downs of his season at Celtic Scales will be delighted to hear such a strong endorsement from his new manager.
The problem for Aberdeen is that the better Scales performs the less likely that Celtic will be to make the move permanent.
A few seasons ago Ryan Christie found himself in a similar situation, returning to Celtic after a season and a half with Aberdeen and kicking on spectacularly under Brendan Rodgers.
