Celtic have lodged a £4million bid for Peterborough striker Ivan Toney that could rise to more than £6million with add-ons, Herald and Times Sport understands.

The striker scored an impressive 24 goals in League One for Posh last season before the football shutdown and has been on the Parkhead outfit's radar for a number of months. Peterborough director Barry Fry recently claimed he would not accept anything less than the £12million asking price, however the player is out of contract at the end of the upcoming season and could walk away at that time for nothing.

Herald and Times Sport understand that Celtic have tabled an offer of an initial £4million for Toney, 24, with the thoughts being that clauses in his contract and the structure of the potential deal could see his current club make more in the long-term.

Brentford are also believed to be interested and have tabled an offer of around £6million for the attacker. The Bees could potentially have Premier League football to offer as an incentive to the player with the play-off semi-finals to manouevre through. 

However it is understood Toney's preferred destination would be Parkhead, given the relationship between the player and first-team coach Gavin Strachan, who previously worked as assistant manager at London Road Stadium. Celtic would also be able to provide Toney with a European platform to play his football.

Rangers are believed to be interested however any potential movement in a deal on Steven Gerrard's part would require the sale of Alfredo Morelos which may not happen any time this week, allowing Celts to steal a march on their rivals.

Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony confirmed on social media that the star had been the subject of a bid from Scotland, saying: "Look, we have had multiple bids for him from Prem/Champ and one from Scotland. As expected. I won't go into who etc as that's private. As of today he is still our player."

We told recently how Celtic coach Strachan admitted he has not been surprised at the interest shown after his showings in the league last season. And on potential interest, at the time, he said: "I've only been on the training pitch for a week and two days so I've just been introducing myself to people.

"I haven't really been privy to those sorts of things. I enjoyed working with Ivan and he's a striker who has attracted lots of attention and rightly so."