Celtic on brink of signing Eboue as midfielder jets in for medical
● Teenager in talks over personal terms ● Rodgers: Dembele knows it’s best to stay
Celtic were last night on the brink of sealing a deal for sought-after teenager Kouassi Eboue after the Ivorian arrived in Scotland for a medical and talks on personal terms.
The club’s interest in the 19-year-old FC Krasnodar midfielder only emerged on Tuesday but he was in Glasgow yesterday ahead of the planned £2.8 million transfer.
Eboue had his first look at Celtic Park as efforts to obtain a work permit for the player continue.
He has yet to make his debut for the Ivory Coast international team but has featured in two recent squads, against France and Morocco.
He has also become a established member of Russian Premier League side FC Krasnodar’s first team despite only joining them last year from Armenian club Shirak.
He was a stand-out during Krasnodar’s Europa League campaign earlier this season.
The player’s rapid progress looks set to continue at Celtic, where he is expected to play as a defensive midfielder. Eboue is likely to become Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers’ first signing of the transfer window and could join his new teammates on their winter break trip to Dubai, with the players scheduled to leave for the Middle East tomorrow.
Former liverpool boss rodgers is still looking to add to the squad but will also look to move some players on during the transfer window.
Definitely remaining, though, will be Moussa Dembele. The club’s top goalscorer has attracted widespread interest since arriving from Fulham last summer. But Rodgers insists the 20-yearold striker, who scored his 14th goal of the season in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Rangers, knows he is best served staying with Celtic for the time being.
“It won’t be January for Moussa,” said Rodgers.
“It is the way it is up here. You know at Celtic that, if you get a really talented player, then the cycle at best is a couple of years, like Victor Wanyama and Virgil van Dijk and Ki Sung-yeung.
“If they have that quality then it is a great platform for them to demonstrate that and then they know there is a better financial situation down south.
“With Moussa it was always going to be the case but the difference now with Celtic is that, if he does leave here, he won’t be going to a bottom-end Premier League table.
“He is at a huge club and playing in front of 60,000 a week. The money can distort the reality for a lot of young players. It takes away from performing and winning things and having games under your belt. Now because the rewards can be given out so quickly, a lot of young players lose sight of that.
“It is the clever ones who put themselves on a pathway to perform, knowing that the rewards will come if they keep producing.”
Former Hibs goalkeeper Andy Mcneil has been released by Championship side Morton so he can start a new role as the reserve goalkeeping coach for Chinese Super League club Guangzhou R&F.
It is the latest in a number of colourful moves that Mcneil has made in his career and despite making 14 appearances this season Morton manager Jim Duffy has agreed that the 29-year-old can leave now to pursue the opportunity.
Mcneil played in Morton’s Betfred Cup semi-final match with Aberdeen at Hampden in November and was due to stay at Cappielow until the end of the season. However it has been agreed that he can move to the side that finished sixth in the Chinese Super League last season and play in the 15,000-capacity Yuexiushan Stadium.
Mcneil told the Greenock club’s website: “I have left Morton now as I have the opportunity to go and work as the reserve goalkeeping coach for a team in China. It is not something that I expected and the offer has come out of the blue.
“I do some goalkeeping coaching for Edusport Academy which is run by Chris Ewing, and a representative from Guangzhou R&F got in touch with Chris looking for someone to work with their goalkeepers.
“He phoned me and said I should have a listen to them.”
Mcneil added: “I then spoke to the Morton manager about it and he obviously wanted me to stay, but he also recognised it was a unique and pretty good opportunity.
“He was very, very good about it and he just said I should do whatever I wanted to do. If I wanted to stay, he would be delighted to keep me because I had played quite a few games in the first half of the season.
“But he also completely understood and said that if I wanted to go and take on this opportunity, he was more than happy to support that as well. It’s not going to be easy but I’m really excited to go there and get started.”
The Edinburgh-born shotstopper started his career south of the border with Southampton and reached the 2005 FA Youth Cup final however he never played for the Saints first team and joined Hibs the following year, picking up a Scottish League Cup winners’ medal in 2007.
Mcneil was released by the Easter Road side in 2009 and played in the Third Division for Montrose before spending a season with Raith Rovers that ended when he travelled to Shenzhen in China to compete for the Great Britain men’s football team at the World University Games.
Stints at Livingston as well as New Zealand sides Waibop United and Hawke’s Bay United followed before he had spells at Airdrie and Alloa, with Mcneil using his spare time to become a qualified tree surgeon.
The keeper credits Duffy for persuading him to stay in football following his stint with Alloa. “When I came into Morton in February last year, I had been at Alloa. It had not gone too well there,” he said.
“I was not really actively pursuing anything, however Jim Duffy phoned me up and asked what I was doing. I was not too keen on getting back into football and had no intentions of playing again.
“But Jim changed my mind and I ended up signing and having a really good time. The success the team has had has been fantastic. We just missed out on the play-offs last year, the team’s sitting third at the moment. We got to the League Cup semi-final and had a great day out at Hampden.
“It has been a massive turnaround from where I was at Alloa and I had a really good time with a fantastic bunch of guys.”
Mcneil added: “I would not be leaving if it wasn’t for this opportunity. This came up and I felt that I had to do it.”
“I would not be leaving if it wasn’t for this opportunity. This came up andi felt th a ti had to do it” ANDY MCNEIL