Sutton’s blunt reply over Scotland star linked with Celtic move

Chris Sutton has completely dismissed the speculation linking Celtic to Lawrence Shankland.

The Hearts man is the flavour of the month with three goals against the big two from Glasgow and snatching a draw for Scotland with a late equaliser against Georgia.

Celtic were strongly linked with Shankland when he was scoring for Dundee United but he moved to Belgian side Beerschot before returning to Scotland to join Hearts in the summer of 2022.

At the age of 28 the Hearts skipper certainly doesn’t fall into the ‘project’ category, his signing would very much be as a back-up striker with Kyogo Furuhashi the first choice at Celtic as long as he is available.

With six weeks to go until the Transfer Window opens the speculation has started with Celtic running short on Scottish players for their UEFA squad.

Discussing the Hearts forward in the Daily Record Sutton has a quick answer to the speculation:

Some people have chucked Lawrence Shankland’s name into the frame. Forget about it. There are enough people trying to hawk him to Rangers and it remains to be seen if they can even afford the Hearts striker.

Celtic can afford him – but he just doesn’t fit the bill. That’s not to say I don’t rate him as a player. It’s got nothing to do with his apparent allegiances either.

He would probably score goals for Celtic. But are they going to spend maybe £3m or £4m on a 28-year-old back up? Highly unlikely.

Shankland needs to be playing every week to have a chance of being part of the Scotland squad at the Euros and there’s no guarantee he’d get that at Celtic. 

With Asian Cup squads looking like decimating the Celtic forward line it would seem logical that a striker is a transfer priority with Japan and South Korea expected to at least reach the knock out phase of the competition that runs from January 12 to February 10.