On August 28th, we covered claims from Spain about Celtic interest in Ivan Šaponjić.
It was explained the 23-year-old forward wasn’t in Diego Simeone’s plans and would likely need to move on to get minutes elsewhere. Atletico Madrid were preparing to sell several of their fringe players, with Šaponjić included on the list.
AS stated any proposal from Celtic would be considered by the La Liga club.
A couple of days later the same Spanish newspaper made clear the player would be allowed to leave, and Celtic were the club linked again.
Things went quiet, and now AS have an update. Šaponjić has ‘parked’ interest from Celtic and Crystal Palace because he wants one last chance to impress Simeone and have a future at Atletico Madrid.
He’s been training hard over the summer, and believes he can change his manager’s mind. It’s a long shot, and that Simeone only gave him 64 minutes over the whole of last season is very telling.
There would have to be spate of injuries for Šaponjić to have any chance, but even when other attackers were out during the last campaign, he wasn’t given the opportunity to replace them.
Should Celtic interest be genuine, they’ll have to wait until the player has decided his dream has died, or sit back and see him make a success of things in Madrid.
