Celtic legend Peter Grant cannot understand why the Scottish Premiership champions didn’t make a move for Josh Doig before his £3 million switch from Hibernian to Hellas Verona, speaking to Go Radio.
If it’s a young full-back you’re after, we’d recommend looking north of the border.
Josh Doig, Kieran Tierney and Calvin Ramsey; All three have claimed the Scottish Football Writer’s Young Player of the Year award over the last five years. That’s without mentioning Aaron Hickey either.
And while Tierney, Ramsey and Hickey are now plying their trade at Arsenal, Liverpool and Brentford respectively, former Hibernian starlet Doig will be testing his mettle against the likes of Juventus, Inter, Milan and Roma in Serie A next season.
Hellas Verona completed the surprise signing of Doig earlier in the summer, paying a bargain fee of £3 million.
But Grant, a two-time Scottish Premiership champion with Celtic in the 1980s, feels his old employers should have done more to ensure Doig stayed in Scotland.
Should Celtic have signed Josh Doig from Hibernian?
“I’ve been scratching my head,” Grant muses, via Glasgow Live. “I thought he would have been an ideal Celtic player, I really do. I saw him as a youngster and I followed him closely.
“He’s got better and better and there are things still to work on in his game. Greg (Taylor) has done tremendously well but I think it would have been great to see another Scotsman in there.
“I don’t think the fee paid in Italy was massive. It’s the money Celtic could have afforded and he is proven in the league. He’s only going to get better and would have improved under the manager.”
Celtic would eventually bring in Alexandro Bernabei from Argentine outfit Lanus instead, as Ange Postecoglou looks to provide some serious competition for the improving but still-rather-limited Greg Taylor for the left-back berth.
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