Another Mainstream Hack Adds Fuel To The Stories About Celtic’s Interest In City Rising Star

Alan Nixon is not the font of all wisdom, but I presume that if you spend enough time working for a national newspaper that you have some modest information coming across your desk from time to time. Today he joins a couple of others in stating that Celtic’s rumoured move for the Manchester City academy player Taylor Harwood-Bellis.

Let’s be honest; he so perfectly fits the profile that this wouldn’t be a surprise far less a shock. There are various reasons for thinking that this move might be a goer, and all of them make sense in the context of the sort of job Ange wants to do here.

The transfer window doesn’t open for another 9 days.

There’s an understandable amount of frustration that we haven’t done the deals yet for Jota and Carter Vickers, but patience will out here. There is simply no rush to get those over the line. The Carter Vickers option doesn’t expire for another 15 days; we’d assume Jota’s deal is to be done over a similar time-frame.

All of us want those bits of business done, and done yesterday, but few of us have any genuine fears that they will collapse. The more important business is what comes next, and how we go about the rest of the summer transfer activity.

I expect much of the business to be done early.

A move for Harwood-Bellis would fit into this general pattern.

Ange will want everyone available for pre-season training, and a much more settled version of it than he had last year which was a bit like paint-by-numbers wearing a blindfold. What a credit to the man that we got most things right.

The buzz about this deal appears more real than that which has surrounded other transfer options. There are a number of outlets still banging on about the left back from Hammarby, Mohanad Jeahze, although Ange himself has flatly denied that he even recognises the name. We will get a rash of names thrown at us as we go on.

This one does feel real though, and the growing buzz amongst the hacks suggests that there is more than just talk here. It might be that everyone involved is seeing two plus two and adding it up to five, but there’s enough in this one to make me curious.

We’ll find out in due course, I suppose.