Celtic and Sunderland turn transfer rivals for Serie A star as Hoops keen to do 'explosive' January business
Celtic and Sunderland are both said to be after the same player this January transfer window.
Celtic are said to have joined Sunderland in the race for a Serie A defender.
The Hoops board are under pressure to back Martin O’Neill with the right tools to try and salvage their Premiership title hopes. They are third in the league and six points off leaders Hearts with transfer criticised roundly all season, with only striker Tomas Cvancara and right-back Julian Araujo arriving on loan, with many feeling far more is needed.
According to transfer journalist Pete O’Rourke, ‘Celtic and Sunderland are among a number of clubs eyeing moves for Lecce defender Antonino Gallo.’ He has been at Lecce since 2019 after leaving Palermo and has impressed over his time at the side currently in the Italian top flight.
Who is Antonino Gallo?
A left-back, Kieran Tierney went off injured against Hearts ahead of Thursday’s Europa League clash with Utrecht, and Marcelo Saracchi has had his injury issues too. Sunderland could offer a road to the Premier League but manager O’Neill is keen to see an explosive nature added to Celtic’s business.
O’Neill said: “Who is to say we might not spend money? There IS a willingness. I think we’ll get some in. Let me put it this way, I’m sure Wilfried Nancy would have had a set of players that he was interested in. That might be a different set of players to me, and it might have been a different set of players to Brendan Rodgers.
“So, from that viewpoint, I came in on the 5th of January, and you try to get to work immediately on players. There’s a fairly, fairly decent chance – go down to Ladbrokes and get your money on it – that I won’t be here next year. So from that viewpoint, I really don’t want to thrust somebody on to them that somebody might not like.
Martin O’Neill on Celtic transfer business
“What I’m trying to do, is put a player into this football club, that can do something for us now, that the new manager, whatever sort of ideas he has, will really like the player. Everybody has different ideas about things, but somebody who can go past people. I love players who can go past people.
“So we’re looking for something a bit explosive, and we can do that. I’m hoping that if we’re spending money on this particular player, and if it comes through, that the next manager stepping in, honestly, will say ‘Oh that’s good’, rather than thinking, ‘I’m not sure about this player.”
“Trust me on this one, there is not a division (with club hierarchy). I’m trying to see what we can get. Some of the players that we thought were set up as things that we could do, haven’t for one reason or another materialised. If you have a set of players that you think this is it, this is your A list and there’s a B list. I’m not so sure that you want to be going down to an F list, you know, which stands for a lot of things you know. So I don’t really want that.”