Scottish Premiership giants Celtic lost out to Championship title favourites Wolverhampton Wanderers this summer for the signature of Barry Douglas.
Wolves have some of the most talented, creative players in the history of English football’s second tier.
Diogo Jota arrived from Porto after a spell at Atletico Madrid, Ivan Cavaleiro has represented Portugal at youth level with great distinction and, in Ruben Neves, Wolves boast the youngest captain in the history of the Champions League.
But only Cavaleiro has as many assists to his name as the rampaging left-back Barry Douglas. Blessed with a wand of a left foot and famed set piece prowess, the Scotland international has set up 12 goals this season – only Aston Villa’s Robert Snodgrass has more in the whole of the Championship.
And Celtic too should take note of this statistic, because, according to The Mirror, they came so close to beating Wolves to Douglas during the summer transfer window.
The Mirror claimed that Celtic were interested in bringing the former Dundee United flyer back to Scotland from Konyaspor. While Konyanin Sessi went as far as to state that they had agreed a fee of around £800,000 before Douglas ended up heading to Molineux.
Now, Celtic may have a wonderful talent of their own at left-back in the £20 million-rated homegrown hero Kieran Tierney, but there is a lack of back-up after Emilio Izaguirre’s summer move to Al-Fayah.
And it is worth noting that Douglas has more assists in all competitions this season (13) than Tierney (9). Wolves’ number three, by the way, has managed that in 14 fewer games.
If Celtic had signed Douglas, Brendan Rodgers would have a real dilemma on his hands right now.
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