Maryan Shved claims he already snubbed Celtic once, shares how Rodgers feels

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Celtic signed Maryan Shved from Karpaty Lviv on deadline day.

Celtic new boy Maryan Shved has told The Scottish Sun that he had a chance to join the Bhoys many years ago – but chose to stay and study in Ukraine.

The Bhoys were busy on transfer deadline day, signing four new faces as they took their January intake to seven players.

After landing Oliver Burke, Timothy Weah and Vakoun Issouf Bayo earlier in the window, Celtic landed Manny Perez, Andrew Gutman and Jeremy Toljan as well as Shved.

Shved, 21, has been in blistering form in Ukraine this season, notching eight goals and three assists in 17 league games for Karpaty Lviv, catching the eye of many clubs.

Celtic swooped to sign him, despite the fact that Bhoys manager Rodgers admitted he wasn’t really too familiar with Shved before the club struck a deal to sign him.

Rodgers’ comments suggested that scouts at the club were sold on Shved and just decided to pull the trigger on a deal, before allowing him to go back to Karpaty Lviv on loan until the end of the season.

Now, Shved has revealed that Celtic actually wanted him many years ago when he was in the Karpaty Academy, but he snubbed their offer in order to continue his studies in Ukraine.

Shved believes that Celtic must have kept a record of his progress and has now decided to sign him after all those years, and added that he thinks Rodgers is ‘pleased’ to have signed him despite that initial confusion for the Celtic boss.

“When I was still at school and with the Karpaty Academy, we used to regularly play in tournaments across Europe,” said Shved. “During one of these which we won, the organisers handed me a number of individual awards and representatives of several clubs wanted to speak to me. I remember they were Celtic and AC Milan. Celtic told me I could sign for them immediately, but I decided to stay in Ukraine and continue my studies.”

“But Celtic’s scouts must have put me on file and came back for me. They’d not forgotten me and now I am a Celtic player…some years later than I could have signed for them! Celtic are a great club who are always in the Champions League. I spoke with Brendan Rodgers when I was over in Glasgow and he was pleased to have signed me. I could have gone on loan elsewhere, but I chose Karpaty because I want to repay the club and try and win the Ukrainian Cup as a leaving present,” he added.