Celtic are reported to be in talks with Benfica over a permanent transfer for Paulo Bernardo.
The midfielder joined the hoops on loan at the end of the summer transfer window, so far he has started 11 of Celtic’s 30 SPFL Premiership matches with a further five appearances off the bench.
Reo Hatate’s injury issues have created an obvious vacancy in the Celtic midfield but Bernardo and Tomoki Iwata have failed to take that opportunity with Brendan Rodgers regularly switching his midfield trio.
The close season looks like being very active for Celtic, late on Wednesday night Portuguese publisher A Bola reported:
Paulo Bernardo’s loan to Celtic is going well, the Scottish club is very satisfied with the performance of the 22-year-old central midfielder and, according to A BOLA, has already given signs to Benfica that it is seriously thinking about moving towards the purchase of the player’s pass definitively.
The loan contract signed with the Reds’ SAD, until the end of this season, has an option to purchase €7.5 million for 70 percent of the transfer, but it is likely that Celtic will push the matter towards the end of the season to try to renegotiate the price.
But the interest of the Scots is gaining more and more consistency and in a scenario very similar to the one set up two seasons ago for Jota, a young striker (also from the Eagles’ formation) who left Luz for Celtic under the same parameters and with a similar option value. stipulated purchase, and then ended up signing permanently for the British club — Jota left for Saudi Arabia at the beginning of this season, plays for Al Ittihad.
Jota and Cameron Carter-Vickers set very high benchmarks for loan players to emulate, so far Bernardo has shown hints of promise but not created the sort of clamour that had Celtic fans tracking their every movement once their loan deal ended.
Coming from the Benfica Academy does guarantee a certain level of player but Bernardo has failed to make the sort of instant impact that Reo Hatate and Matt O’Riley made when they joined Celtic in January 2022 on much smaller transfer fees.
NOTE: Portuguese sport sites A Bola and Record tend to be very accurate with transfer details.
I’m not totally convinced about him yet but obviously the sees something in him
Bernardo is a reasonable player, but not worth the money Benfica want for him. He won’t bring that amoung of value to the club.
He isn’t really suited to the game in Scotland.
Sure, he had a reasonable spell for a wee while, but that’s not what we need. We need consistency. The fact is he is not any better than David Turnbull was for us, and we only got £2.5 M for him. He is nowhere near as good as Ryan Christie and we got roughly the same for him!
I didn’t realise there was a sell on fee in the agreement. €7.5m with a 30% sell on fee is awful value. Celtic should not pursue the deal on those terms
I’m seeing him more as a Massimo Donati or Oliver Ntcham than a Jota at the moment. Flashes of promise but not wholly convinced he’s worth that sort of money.
I’d keep Iwata before Bernardo…Agree with others…not worth the money being spoken about….He doesn’t impress that much.
Dont want him dont need him.