Celtic close in on Kobe’s Kobayashi
CELTIC have opened talks with Vissel Kobe over a January move for central defender Yuki Kobayashi. Reports in Japan claim agreement is close on a deal for the 22-year-old when the transfer window opens in the New Year. Already making plans for the January window, Kobayashi would become the fifth Japanese player on Celtic’s books after Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate and Yosuke Ideguchi signed last January. Furuhashi opened the scoring for the league leaders as a 3-0 win over Livingston re-established a four-point lead over Rangers. Greg Taylor added a second before Jota marked his return from injury with the third goal after Giorgos Giakoumakis missed a penalty awarded after a VAR review. A former Under-21 international, leftsided defender Kobayashi represented Japan at the Tokyo Olympics and
could still force his way into Hajime
Moriyasu’s squad for the World Cup finals in Qatar. Sportsmail understands a left-sided centre-half is a priority for Ange Postecoglou in January, with Stephen Welsh likely to seek first-team football elsewhere. Celtic are also bracing themselves for more interest in Croatian right-back Josip Juranovic after the World Cup finals. Meanwhile, Postecoglou vowed Celtic will show no fear when they wrap up their Champions League campaign in the Bernabeu against Real Madrid. Celtic have picked up just two points from an available 15 in Group F ahead of their final match in the Spanish capital on Wednesday night. But Postecoglou has regularly stated that his team’s performances have shown they don’t look out of place among Europe’s elite. Speaking after yesterday’s win at Livingston, he insisted they would again play with the handbrake off. ‘What we tried to do in this whole Champions League campaign is test ourselves — and we have done that in every game,’ said the Australian. ‘I understand we have come up short and we know the areas we are looking to improve. But, in every game, we have not shied away from the contest. ‘We haven’t gone in there fearing what the outcome may be if we take our normal approach. We’ve just gone in and seen how we measure up — and that’s what we will do on Wednesday.’