Celtic tell Chelsea Craignot forsaleas bidisKO’d

CELTIC maintained last night that Craig Gordon is not for sale as Chelsea saw an opening bid for the player rejected by the Parkhead side.

Sources within the club insisted that the Scotland keeper is a player they want to retain with a firm not-for-sale notice issued.

Chelsea are in the process of looking for a back-up to Thibaut Courtois as Bournemouth have tabled a £10m bid for No.2 Asmir Begovic.

The Stamford Bridge club will not release Begovic until they have secured his replacement, with Gordon currently their first choice.

The initial bid for 34-year-old Gordon is believed to be substantially below Celtic’s valuation for the player, whom the club have an option to trigger a further year on his existing deal which would equate to 18-months remaining on his current contract.

However, while Celtic are resistant to offers for Gordon it is understood that privately the player himself is interested.

It is also understood that Gordon first came

to the attention of the London club in 2015.Gordon has helped Celtic win two Premiership titles and the League Cup in 2015 and 2016.

When Brendan Rodgers succeeded Ronny Deila in May, the Northern Irishman signed Dutch keeper Dorus de Vries and Gordon briefly lost his place in the team.

However, he has started all of Celtic’s games since late September and went on to win his 45th international cap in Scotland’s 3-0 loss to England in November at Wembley.

Meanwhile, Celtic target Henry Onyekuru – who has been accused of going AWOL over the past 24 hours from Belgium – has hit out at his club KAS Eupen, insisting they are trying to force him to sign for CSKA Moscow.

The 19-year-old Onyekuru said: “Eupen promised to let me move in January if I have a good offer. Now there are good offers but they now want me to sign for their own agent, before I move and they want me to sign for CSKA Moscow which is unfair and not acceptable.”

Onyekuru was dropped for Eupen’s game against Standard Liege last night.