‘Excellent wasn’t it?’: BBC pundit impressed with Celtic-bound World Cup star

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Celtic are set to sign Alistair Johnston and he earned praise from pundit Martin Keown for his performance against Croatia on Sunday.

We know Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou likes to work quickly but even for his standard, this is pretty unbelievable.

Celtic have already secured the signing of Japanese defender Yuki Kobayashi, who arrives from Vissel Kobe in January.

As if that wasn’t enough, Celtic now have a second January signing in the pipeline with Alistair Johnston heading for Glasgow.

Celtic are set to sign Alistair Johnston

Fabrizio Romano claims that Celtic have a ‘verbal agreement’ in place with CF Montreal for the signing of Johnston.

The Daily Record add that Celtic will be paying around £3million to bring Johnston to Glasgow.

Johnston, 24, impressed for Montreal last season as he bagged four goals and four assists in 33 MLS games.

Yet the real showcase for Johnston has been the World Cup, where he has been starting for Canada.

Johnston started as a right-sided centre back in the 1-0 defeat to Belgium before playing as a right back in a 4-2-2-2 and then back to right centre back against Croatia.

Sadly, that Croatia game ended in a 4-1 defeat for Canada despite Alphonso Davies scoring a rapid opener.

Johnston was given a tough task on the right as he had to try and shackle Ivan Perisic and Borna Sosa.

One moment in the 27th minute saw Perisic run at Johnston, only for the Celtic-bound defender to execute a perfect sliding tackle to stop the Tottenham star in his tracks.

Pundit Martin Keown was very impressed with that moment and moved to praise Johnston whilst speaking on BBC Sport.

“Excellent wasn’t it?” said Keown. “He made up his mind, gotta get out there and stop it at source,” he added.

Perisic has been one of the top wingers in Europe for about 10 years now and he showed his quality with two assists for Croatia last night.

That kind of defending against a player of Perisic’s quality will leave Celtic fans very excited and will hope that Johnston brings that quality to Scotland.