ANGE POSTECOGLOU has confirmed that Celtic are interested in bringing St Mirren youngster Dylan Reid to the club for their B team, but that his focus is firmly on strengthening his first-team as he continues to work on a ‘couple’ of targets.
The Celtic manager was speaking after watching his side draw 3-3 with Rapid Vienna in a keenly contested pre-season friendly in the Austrian capital.
Celtic have had a bid of £125,000 for young midfielder Reid accepted by the Saints, but Rangers are also interested in the Scotland under-17 captain and may match the bid from their city rivals, leaving the decision in the player’s hands.
“I think that’s more for our B team and academy,” Postecoglou said.
“Again, I’d love to be the man for everything, but I have my limitations in terms of what I’m focused on at the moment. Other people are in charge of that area.
“I think between now and whenever the window closes, [signings] will always be imminent, but is anything going to happen in the next 24 hours? Unlikely.
“We need to bring in at least a couple of more players and we’re working on that, and in terms of exits, there’s obviously some stuff going on in the background with some players.
“My focus is more on the guys who are here and the boys we’re trying to bring in.”
Meanwhile, Postecoglou has played down injury fears over Anthony Ralston and Josip Juranovic after both right-backs missed the game against Rapid. With both players carrying knocks, Osaze Urhoghide was the only player forced to play the whole 90 minutes for Celtic.
“Tony got a knock yesterday and just wasn’t 100 percent for today so we erred on the side of caution,” he said. “He should be fine for Wednesday.
“Josip is fine, he trained fully this morning, but he missed the first part of the week so we are trying to get all the guys into a programme where they do a bit of work before we expose them to game time.
“Credit to Osaze, he played 90 minutes on Wednesday and 90 minutes today. The one thing about him is he is a warrior. He works hard. We had him pencilled in for 90 minutes today, and he got through it.
“It was a great game. Sometimes with these friendly games, you worry whether the intensity might not be quite there. At times, it was like a real contest, which was brilliant.
“Credit to Rapid and our boys, they made it into a real, competitive game with the crowd out there as well. I thought it was a real worthwhile exercise.
“It’s a game we can take stuff out of. We can really analyse well, knowing that it was full of intensity and competition. We can give the guys positive feedback on the stuff we did well and the stuff we need to enforce to keep improving.”
