Celtic boss Neil Lennon has told The Scottish Sun that he is hopeful both Fraser Forster and Mohamed Elyounoussi will return to the club for next season.
The Bhoys swooped twice in August 2019 to raid Southampton; something fans will have enjoyed having seen the Saints raid Celtic in recent years.
The first of their two signings was Forster, with the giant goalkeeper returning to Parkhead. Forster had made his name with Celtic before joining Southampton in 2014, and returned to Glasgow for first-team football.
Just days before the summer deadline, Celtic struck again, this time signing Saints winger Elyounoussi on a similar season-long loan deal.
The Norwegian was a big signing for Southampton in 2018 as they forked out £16million to sign him from Basel, but he struggled to make an impact in England.
Forster has been a mainstay of the Celtic side this season, whilst Elyounoussi has racked up seven goals and six assists in just 20 games for the club, but injury has hampered him.
The Scottish Sun claim that Southampton are open to selling both players to Celtic for the right price, and Lennon has now commented on the situation.
Lennon is ‘hopeful’ that both players will be with Celtic next season, branding them ‘absolutely brilliant’ and ‘fantastic’ respectively, believing it would create continuity if they stayed at Parkhead.
“We’re hopeful they’ll be around but that’s a conversation we’ll have to have with Southampton and the players individually,” said Lennon. “In the main, we’d want to keep them if we could. It kept that continuity going rather than maybe going out and bringing other players in.”
“If we could keep the services of those two, they know how we work and what the club is all about. They made really good contributions. Fraser was absolutely brilliant and Moey, up until the injury, was fantastic,” he added.
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