Martinez won’t rule out move for Virgil

EVERTON boss Roberto Martinez last night refused to rule out making a move to sign Celtic defender Virgil van Dijk. Speaking after watching his English Premier League side record a 3-1 friendly win over Hearts at Tynecastle, the Spaniard confessed he is in the market for a new central defender. While being unwilling to speak directly about van Dijk, Martinez is reportedly willing to pay Celtic’s £10million asking price. With Everton’s John Stones the subject of big-money interest from Chelsea, and Sylvain Distin and Antolin Alcaraz having both left Merseyside in the summer, the Goodison manager has admitted he is in need of reinforcements. ‘That’s the nature of this period, you are going to be linked with

From Back Page players,’ said Martinez. ‘I don’t enjoy talking about other players when they are not at our club and I will never be disrespectful in that manner. ‘Our squad is not complete. We are still looking for two positions and we need to make sure they fit exactly in the group in the manner we want and expect as footballers and people. ‘Central defence is one of those positions. Two experienced centrehalves left the squad, so we need to fill those gaps. ‘I’m still assessing two of the young players we’ve got in the squad, but maybe we need another new face at centre-half. ‘We will wait as long as we can to select the person we want.’ Meanwhile, Celtic’s Champions League opponents Qarabag FK face a race against time to obtain visas before tonight’s charter flight to Glasgow. The Azerbaijani champions have hired a plane to leave Baku for a six-hour flight ahead of Wednesday’s third qualifying round first leg at Parkhead. But Qarabag officials admit they will only discover this morning if they have visas to fly to the United Kingdom after becoming tangled up and frustrated by red tape. ‘We will travel to Glasgow on Monday at 19:30 UK time,’ spokesman Nurlan Ibrahimov told Sportsmail. ‘But it is not certain yet. ‘It is very difficult getting visas for the United Kingdom. We have been promised we will receive the visas early on Monday morning. We hope so because we have hired a special charter flight to fly us directly to Glasgow. ‘The flight will take six hours and it will be the longest journey in the club’s history. We just hope we have the visas in time without any problems.’ Qarabag have pulled off a string of shock results in Europe in recent seasons, but earned the chance to face Celtic after a narrow 1-0 aggregate win over Montenegrin side Rudar. ‘We know Celtic are favourites,’ said Ibrahimov. ‘Our coach Qurban Qurbanov has said Celtic

are one of the best known clubs in the world. ‘It will be very hard for us, but we will just try our best.’ Celtic, meanwhile, watched Den Haag’s Michiel Kramer in action at the weekend after the Dutch striker’s proposed move to the United Arab Emirates collapsed last week. However, Parkhead sources have played down their interest in the player.