Rocco Vata has admitted his Celtic transfer exit came "earlier than expected" as he sealed a switch to Watford.
The 19-year-old was out of contract at Parkhead this summer and decided to leave the club for a move to England.
Vata had been offered new terms at Celtic but opted to depart the club after 12 years in the academy.
The teenager has penned a four-year deal with Watford with the club holding the option to extend the deal by a further 12 months.
Watford will pay Celtic in the region of £237k as a compensation fee for the deal to sign the son of former defender Rudi Vata.
After finalising his move, Vata broke his silence on the transfer switch as he thanked Celtic staff and supporters for their backing during his time in Glasgow.
On his personal Instagram story, Vata wrote: "My 12 years at Celtic comes to an end earlier than expected.
Read more:
"Would like to thank all the staff I've worked with throughout the years for developing me into the player and person I am today, and the fans who believed in me and supported me.
"I wish Celtic all the best next year."
On signing Vata, Watford head coach Tom Cleverley commented: “It’s no secret that there was a lot of interest in Rocco, both in the UK and abroad.
“So we have to be excited because clearly the project we are offering to players is appealing to them.
“Now we can’t disappoint, and he’s also got the challenge to secure his place in the team and fulfil the potential.
“But when you have a player who has a really determined and relentless character, they are the sort of people who generally do fulfil their potential and I see that in Rocco.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here