CASTAGNE NOT SO KEEN ON CELTIC MOVE
CELTIC target Timothy Castagne has voiced his preference to move to either England or Germany as he looks set to leave Atalanta next month.
The 23-year-old rightback is wanted by Celtic in a £6million move, although it is believed that the Parkhead club were told by the Serie A side that they did not wish to sell the player.
Castagne is under contract at Atalanta until the summer of 2020 but he has made just nine appearances so far this season. Capped three times for Belgium, Celtic had identified Castagne as a potential replacement for Mikael Lustig who is wanted on a pre-contract by AIK Stockholm in his homeland. “I can see Germany and England, two competitions where it goes forward, and there is less tactics than in Italy, which are two competitions that attract me,” the full-back told Eleven Sports.
“If I could ask a Red Devil [fellow internationalist] to recommend me to the board, I think the Thorgan Hazard club [Borussia Monchengladbach] is a nice club, and it is not too far from Belgium either.” Celtic are still also pursuing a loan move for Timothy Weah with the PSG player confirming TURN TO PAGE 47
HENRY Pyrgos has to make sure eight years of instinct don’t kick in and he walks into the wrong changing room when he arrives at Scotstoun Stadium tomorrow.
He could be forgiven if the past did catch up with him. Until this year, Glasgow Warriors was the only place he knew as a professional rugby player. It was the organisation he joined aged 20 and the club he represented in 147 games.
It has been a huge part of his life and though it was not until his second season that they made Scotstoun their playing base it has always been the club headquarters and training ground.
Now, though, his allegiances have changed. Pyrgos is a key piece in the Richard Cockerill jigsaw at Edinburgh, having switched allegiance in the summer.
There were reports this time last year that Cockerill actually had his sights on George Horne but with the benefit of hindsight, the coach must be relieved he saw the light and accepted Pyrgos instead. While Horne is all about flair, he is young and does not yet have the game to navigate the team round the field in the way that is second nature to Pyrgos.
In last week’s 23-7 win at Murrayfield, for example, Horne did not kick once from the base of a ruck; every time the game moved into the Edinburgh half, Pyrgos kicked to make sure the opposition were going to have to construct any pressure from 50 metres or more.
“Glasgow have a bunch of dangerous players so they’re going to find space at times,” Pyrgos said. “They caused as problems, as we knew they would, but I thought our forwards again defended really well in the headline phases of play and we managed to stop them.
“We were focused on exiting our half really well. There’s no real urgency to do that, just make sure we have everyone in the right slots and then try and get in a good kick and put them under pressure. Move the game up into their half. We don’t need to play that fast. It is what it is and we were able to do that well.”
As Pyrgos observed, the reality is that things change quickly enough that the tips and insight he brings on the Warriors are almost certainly out of date. What he does bring, though, is the memories of the process that allowed Glasgow to go from bottom feeders to title challengers.
“We’re on our own journey,” he insists. “Glasgow went on their journey, we want to be up there. We don’t know what that will look like, but we’re working really hard. We’re definitely going in the right direction.
“At the end of the season we want to be up there. The only way you improve is that you ultimately get into the playoffs. It’s a long process and we have to keep working hard.”
Since Edinburgh won at Connacht at the end of March, they failed to win away again until two weeks ago when they broke the drought at Newcastle. Can they make it two away wins in a row?
“We don’t focus on the away stuff,” Pyrgos replied. “We’ve actually played really well in a lot of those games. I don’t think it’s an away form thing.
“Teams at home usually play really well and those have been tough games, a couple when we had a few boys away in the autumn stuff.It was a big game at Newcastle, a tough game, it was good to go and win that but Scotstoun will be a completely different game. We’ll have to play really well if we want to win that.”