Michel-Ange Balikwisha

Scott Burns with a bonus update


Celtic are refusing to give up on their long-running pursuit of Michel Ange Balikwisha.

The Hoops have identified the Royal Antwerp winger as one of their top targets this summer as Brendan Rodgers desperately seeks to add more firepower to his frontline.

Celts are down to the bare bones in terms of wide options following Nicolas Kuhn's £17million exit to Como and Jota sidelined until 2026.

Balikwisha, 24, has been on the radar for a while and the Parkhead club were ready to move for him in January before he suffered his last injury.

The lightning-quick Belgian is out of contract next summer and Celtic hope to land him for a cut-price deal.

Cash-strapped Royal Antwerp are open to selling their star man rather than risk losing him for nothing at the end of this season.

But sporting director Marc Overmars is reluctant to budge on the £5m price tag, with Celts keen to meet somewhere in between.

The player's representative Jibril Rekkab claimed that there hasn't been contact between both clubs but Record Sport understands discussions have taken place.

It's believed Antwerp know that Balikwisha wants to move to Scotland but are playing hardball as they look to get the best fee they can as his contract runs down

 

And we thought the Idah, Bernardo saga was boring

 

Sick of the sight of this *'s name now.

 

He can’t be the main target if we are refusing to pay that sort of price for him it just seems daft. Either that or we are doing the same as Breum and bidding something stupid like £2m and just waiting to see if they budge. If what we value him at is below what they want to sell for move on.

If they then come back because it looks like we’ve moved on great if not press ahead with the other signing.

 

Mate I’m only posting what Scott burns has said


No need to be nasty about it

 

To be fair these "sagas" are only because we post about 10 million completely irrelevant posts about how * we are at transfers!

 

Painful..

* knows if it's even right but although I don't personally want him, if we do, pay the 5 or go as close to and bring him in..

 

Will be a bit embarrassing if we're actually in for him. Seems like his club have been desperate for us to sign him for ages so doesn't exactly sound like the deal would be a struggle to conclude.

 

Watch us pay 5 mill for the * as well

 

Very bored of this now.

 

We don’t have any other targets lined up do we. We are going to end up paying the money they want for him and it’s been dragged out to death like Idah last season.

 

There were better players in the Panathinaikos team that would probably cost less.

 

I actually do want to sign him, feel like he'd be a big game player and good in Europe.

Tierney and Johnston at full-back, him on the left, Maeda up front would be a big step up from last season in Europe in solidity with Tierney being far better defensively than Taylor and having Maeda up front and then him on the left who it seems is quality defensively. Plus seems Yamada is a good defensive player and presser as well to come off the bench.

Obviously decent technically as well, scored freekicks and takes some corners at least it seems from his heatmap.






Improving each season, last season hampered with the 7 month lay-off and return but he also ended last season on fire...



Last 6 games an average of 7.7.

Probably has high ratings since he combined really good defending with decent attacking and creativity as well.

Thats playing for a team who aren't really that good either, 5th in Belgium only average about 50% possession.

 

I am not pretending to be ITK or anything. But what I heard is that we negotiated early July. Had good conversations and since then: NOTHING. No communication with neither club nor player!

 

Sounds like something an ITK would say

 

Sounds like he got them on a hook with the player wanting to join. And with that leverage the board with the knowledge of the player going into his last 12 months, feel 5m can be reduced. But the fact is if we signed him 3 weeks ago we would have an asset worth 5m in for full pre-season before important champions league tie.

What they want is the Belguims to cave and them to pay 3.5m for a 5m asset. Between supporters getting fed up with the saga and lack of prep with the new team is it worth the risk if hes top of the list

 

Lol, you are right lol. Source is someone who works for Antwerp in a non-sportive role. But Antwerp is a small club, so things go around much quicker. They expected him to be gone in early July.

 

See if this guy has always been top target and out plan all along was to try get him for cheap, fine. It's not like it's a suprise, it's pretty much our whole M.O at this stage.

But the season starts next weekend so next week is the time to give it up, we tried to do it cheap, it doesn't work, pay what they want and get him in and move on to try and cheapskate our way to a right winger

 

I was told earlier we’d expect to confirm on a Friday


Has yer source mentioned a Friday