CELTIC were last night close to completing a deal which would see St Mirren’s talented midfielder Lewis Morgan join the Scottish champions.
We understand that the transfer should be sealed over the next few days but the 21-year-old will stay with the Paisley side until the end of this season.
A fee of around £300,000 plus add-ons has all-but secured the signing of one of Scotland’s best young talents in Morgan, the Championship’s stand-out player of this year, who has been scouted by several clubs in England including Nottingham Forest and Preston North End.
Indeed, the Parkhead club felt they had to quickly before the player was tempted to move to south of the border.
Rangers were also keen but the Scotland Under-21 international believes Brendan Rodgers is the man to further his career.
Celtic are also close to completing the capture of defender Marvin Compper from Red Bull Leipzig. The 32-year-old, who will cost £1m, is in Glasgow and is expected to have a medical today.
And while yesterday Chris Davies, the Celtic assistant manager, insisted the club would not be busy during the January transfer window, Dundee’s highly-rated central defender Jack Hendry, 22, is also nearing to move to Celtic Park, although like Morgan he could spend the rest of this season on loan at with his current side.
"As always in the January window we’ll be looking to add only things that we think will really improve us at that time of year,” said Davies.
“We’ve got a good squad, we’ve got lots of good players. There is certainly nothing major that needs to be done, what we need is to improve and evolve the squad in terms of quality slowly but surely.
“We’ll see in January exactly what that means but there is no panic or no rush."
St Mirren knocked back a £200,000 bid for Morgan from Preston in the summer but with the player’s contract due to end in June, they have accepted Celtic’s offer instead of watching him leave for nothing.
And Jack Ross, the St Mirren manager, will still have his talisman available to him for the Paisley club’s promotion push.
Jack recently praise Morgan for the manner in which such a young man has copes with so much being spoken about him with regards Celtic.
“Lewis has strengthened his mind-set in a number of ways over the past year,” said Ross. “He has coped very well with the attention around him.
“That has raised expectations of his performance level and he has just got to learn to deal with that, but it will help him wherever he goes.”
Erik Sviatchenko is expected to leave next month having fallen out of favour with Rodgers who could be in for a huge windfall if Manchester City sign Virgil van Dijk during the window with a fee of over £60m being spoken about for the Southampton defender.
Celtic would rake in ten per cent of the fee for English football's most coveted player.
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