Mark Wilson believes Ange Postecoglou would NOT sign Hibs star Ryan Porteous just to spite bitter rivals Rangers.
The Easter Road ace is entering the final six months of his contract and will be free to discuss pre-contract terms with interested parties come January 1. Lee Johnson's side are likely to cash in on the 23-year-old with interest intensifying in his services. As many as SIX English Championship clubs are keen on the stopper.
Radio pundit and Clyde boss Jim Duffy floated the idea this week that the Light Blues might be keen on the Scotland cap and former Celtic full-back Wilson reckons he could end up at Ibrox under new boss Michael Beale. Any suggestion, however, of Celtic moving in for the 23-year-old has been rubbished by Wilson who has questioned whether the stopper is Celtic 'class'.
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Postecoglou is also not short of options in the position with first-choice pairing Cameron Carter-Vickers and Carl Starfelt likely to start in the second half of the season. Stephen Welsh and Moritz Jenz have also stepped up when deputising and new man Yuki Kobayashi is set to arrive.
He said: "It's Ange Postecoglou, and I'm sure all Celtic fans would like to think that he's signing players on merit and because they can contribute to the squad - not upset their rivals.
"Now, he may well think that Porteous can contribute but he's got an awful lot of centre-backs in there at the moment so he'd have to shift someone out. Porteous has good attributes, he's at a good age, he's played a good amount of games in the league and he's an internationalist so he has a lot going for him.
"The one thing that he has against him is that he is rash and that keeps coming up but I think that could be tempered. You wouldn't want to take it all out the game because I think aggression as a centre-half is being lost out of the game. I think he's a good player but whether he's Celtic class, I don't know.
"The Celtic manager, certainly just now, won't just do it to get one over Rangers."
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