Celtic loanee being 'closely' tracked this winter as 'important' Rangers man is hailed

Celtic face Ross County at home in their next Scottish Premiership outing. The Hoops drew 1-1 with Club Brugge at Celtic Park on Wednesday night last time out in the Champions League.

Meanwhile, Rangers face an away trip to St Johnstone. In the meantime, here is a look at some of the latest news and rumours coming out of the pair....

Loanee being watched

Barcelona are ‘closely’ monitoring Alex Valle’s progress at Celtic, according to a report by Spanish news outlet SPORT. The 20-year-old, who is a Spain youth international, joined the Hoops in the summer to bolster their defensive department.

He was given the green light to head out the exit door by Barca in the last transfer window to get some experience under his belt. The left-back has since made 10 appearances in all competitions under the guidance of Brendan Rodgers.

Valle is due to return to Spain next summer but his long-term future is up in the air. He has said, as per the Daily Record: “At the moment, I’m just looking forward to this season, I just go year-by-year. I don’t know what will happen in the future. But I’m enjoying it here. I love this city, it’s been great for me so far. First of all, I want to learn as much as I can here.

“I’m a young player so it’s really important to play as much as I can and develop. Then, if trophies come I’ll be happy, of course. That’s what we want, everyone at Celtic, the fans and the players. It’s normal that we want to achieve that. We want to win as many trophies as we can this season.”

In terms of his battle with Greg Taylor, he said: “The competition between myself and Greg is really healthy. He’s a great person and a great player also. It was unfortunate for Greg to get injured but these things happen in football. But it has given me the opportunity to come into the team. I’ve tried to take my chance and give the best I can. Whether I stay in there is not my decision, I’m just trying to do everything I can in every game and training session.”

Rangers man hailed

Rangers’ Dujon Sterling has been praised by OGC Nice goalkeeper Marcin Bulka. The pair played together as youngsters at Chelsea. The stopper has said, as per Andy Newport (via Rangers News): ”I used to play with Dujon (Sterling) in Chelsea academy. He’s my age. He’s a right-back. He used to be at the time, I don’t know now because I haven’t heard from him for a long time.

”I think it’s good to play against the players that you know and they are your friends, they stay your friends. Recently I played against my other teammate with the national team, was Billy Gilmour, who played with me in Chelsea. It’s true that at Chelsea when I played we had many great players who are very important players in Europe and Dujon Sterling is one of them.”