Celtic had opportunity to sign Chelsea’s record signing for just £1m

Celtic had the opportunity to sign Moises Caicedo for just £1m in the summer of 2020. Then Caicedo was playing for Independiente del Valle before impressing, resulting in the £4.5m switch to Brighton that subsequently led to his Chelsea.

Mauricio Pochettino signed Caicedo for £115m, a British transfer record, earlier this week. However, Stephen McGowan at the Daily Mail has revealed that Celtic were sent a report identifying Caicedo by a scout in the summer of 2020. The scout believed that the club would be able to sign the player for around £1m. However, by the time Celtic sought to look into the player further, he had gained a reputation of his own and was on the radar of a number of clubs.

Caicedo, who is just 21, benefitted from the coaching of Graham Potter and then Roberto De Zebri at Brighton but will now seek to replicate his initial success with Chelsea.

Maybe Celtic thought that they were covered in the form of Ismailia Soro, who had barely made the bench by this point, in the defensive midfield role.

It is a case of what might’ve been. Often players are offered in a number of forms, some going onto impress and others proving themselves to have been near misses.

One thing is for certain and that is that if Caicedo had gone to Celtic, there is no way that the Scottish Champions would’ve received a fee anywhere near (or within £50m) to what Chelsea paid.

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Photo: Stephen Welsh pictured with crutches wearing moon boot

In a cruel twist of fate, Stephen Welsh, who the club just announced signed a four-year extension to his current deal has been picked up an injury at training in Lennoxtown and will now miss Sunday’s game against Kilmarnock. The Hoops are due to kick-off their defence of the League Cup in Ayrshire this weekend.

The 23-year-old Scot had been pencilled in to start alongside new signing Maik Nawrocki in the aftermath of Cameron Carter-Vickers’ hamstring problem that will sideline him for a few weeks yet. It’s another blow for young Welsh who had a fantastic opportunity to show Brendan Rodgers and the Celtic faithful that he is more than capable of challenging for a place in the starting line-up.

There had been some suggestions that Welsh could leave the club before this news today, but Rodgers has move to quash any theories about Stephen leaving the club and insisted he remains a key part of his future plans at Celtic Park. The player really just needs a run of games at this stage to get back into the groove and perform to the best of his abilities.

Unfortunately though, it looks like it won’t be this week after such a great performance away to Aberdeen up at Pittodrie last Sunday lunchtime. Welsh has since been pictured today in crutches and a moon boot which doesn’t look great at this point. One wonders how much bad luck we can have at this point after the two Johnston’s, Tilio, Oh, CCV, Hatate and now Welsh out for a spell.