Mark Warburton has rubbished reports linking Queens Park Rangers starlet Sinclair Armstrong with a move to Scottish Premiership giants Celtic, speaking to West London Sport.
A dramatic, last-gasp 1-0 victory over West Bromwich Albion on Saturday afternoon lifted dark horses QPR up to fourth in the Championship table, just five points adrift of the automatic promotion positions.
And one would imagine that Warburton will be thrilled to see the likes of Rob Dickie, Ilias Chair and Chris Willock stay away from the gossip columns.
At the risk of tempting fate, QPR’s star men are not being subjected to the sort of speculation that the likes of Blackburn Rovers (Ben Brereton-Diaz) and Bournemouth (Dominic Solanke) are having to contend with.
Given his undoubted potential, losing Sinclair Armstrong this month would be a disappointment.
According to Goal, Celtic and Manchester City are watching closely.
But, given that the 18-year-old Irishman has not made a single league appearance in QPR colours, losing of a future star would not be anywhere near as damaging as seeing one of Warburton’s first-team regulars head for the exit.
Will Sinclair Armstrong leave QPR for Celtic?
Nonetheless, Warburton is not convinced that there is any truth in reports linking Armstrong with a move away from West London.
“I’d imagine his agent has been extremely busy,” says the former Rangers and Nottingham Forest boss.
“Rumours of Celtic and Man City? I’d imagine certain agents have been extremely busy.
“When you see all these names (big clubs) you just know agents are busy at work in the January window.
“It’s absolute nonsense. Let’s give the boy a chance now for the next stage of his career.”
Yosuke Ideguchi, Reo Hatate and Daizen Maeda made their Hoops debuts in Monday’s 2-0 victory over Hibernian.
Maeda, the 23-goal J-League Golden Boot winner, opened the scoring with almost his first touch in green-and-white.
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