BRENDAN Rodgers last night confirmed the highly-rated Australian teenager Daniel Arzani is days away from signing a two-year loan deal at Celtic Park.
The winger is now in England to complete his move from Melbourne City to parent club Manchester City, with an agreement put in place for him to play for the Scottish champions, who began their title defence with a 3-1 win over Livingston yesterday, until 2020.
Tom Rogic, man of the match in yesterday’s win, described his countryman as a “great talent” and while Rodgers said nothing on a link with Aberdeen defender Scott McKenna or a report he’s dropped his interest in John McGinn, the Celtic manager was happy to speak about his soon-to-be new signing.
He said: “I can say something about him [Arzani]. He is obviously finalising his deal with Manchester City and there are talks with ourselves about him coming in as a possibility.
“He is an exciting young talent and we’ll see if we can get that organised over the next few days.
“It won’t be done for midweek [the AEK Athens game]. He has only just flown in and hasn’t trained. He was at the World Cup so it will be a number of weeks before he is up to speed.”
Rodgers was delighted with his team’s first league win, although there was a concern about Olivier Ntcham who was left limping after taking a blow to his ankle late on in the game.
The Celtic manager said: “It was a very good performance for us on the back of last week’s game. We had good tempo and had good energy which is never easy against a team when they sit in. Livingston made it difficult for us, they have an honest group of players.
“Some of our play was exceptional. Our only complaint was the goal we conceded when Olivier Ntcham was injured and wasn’t back to go with his man, but that will be sorted out on the field.
“Oliver is a red flag. He took what looked a sore one on the ankle. He will be assessed but they can be okay once the swelling goes down.
“There were so many positives. Leigh Griffiths was excellent when he came on. He showed good movement, his touch was good as was his running behind. There were a lot of good movements. We looked a really creative team in the final third. I thought some of our play was excellent.”
Kenny Miller, the Livingston player/manager, had no complaints about his team’s effort.
He said: “Celtic are the best team we will play. But we kept going and kept out shape right until the very end.”
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