Southampton have made a concrete move to sign Matt O'Riley, according to a report.
It's claimed the Premier League side have registered their interest in the Celtic midfielder in the "last few hours".
TuttoMercato state Russell Martin's side are keen on a transfer swoop for O'Riley this summer.
The former Scotland internationalist is well acquainted with O'Riley having previously managed him at MK Dons.
Now, it appears he could rival interest from Atalanta in a transfer race to land O'Riley.
The Serie A club have reportedly had bids for O'Riley rejected by Celtic chiefs who are thought to be holding out for a record transfer fee.
The outlet claims the latest bid from Atalanta was "€17m euros plus two in bonuses" but it was met with a "firm no".
Read more:
When quizzed on transfer interest in O'Riley earlier this week, Brendan Rodgers said: "Celtic is a club where you can move on but you don’t have to and it’s a very difficult club to move on from.
“I think we all understand, the people close to Celtic, the model Celtic works to.
“Matt’s been at the club for three years, he’s developed into the player he has and he knows the privilege it is to play for Celtic.
“Of course naturally how it works is the player gets that opportunity to move on.
“Naturally with the wages that are on offer for players then that makes it a real challenge for Celtic to compete at that level.
“But what I’ve seen with Matt is he’s a first-class professional. He’s a really humble guy who’s really devoted to his profession and he knows what he has here.
“We’re all quite relaxed about it. Every player has a value but we see him as a really important player and while he’s here we’ll continue to develop him and improve.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel