Celtic Getting Camilo Duran Is ‘Coup’ Believes Former Star | OneFootball

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Former top flight midfielder Alex Rae believes that signing Qarabag striker Camilo Duran will be a bit of a ‘coup’ for Celtic, given his quality and the amount of interest he has generated.

Duran is on the verge of joining the Bhoys and is set to sign a three-year deal with the Scottish champions with an option to extend his stay by another year.

He will strengthen the Parkhead side’s attacking department, which often came under the scanner last term for lacking the end product, leading to Tomas Cvancara, Junior Adamu and Joel Mvuka all being loaned in mid-season.

Celtic’s recruitment team will need to do much better this summer and they believe that Duran fits the bill.

Unlike last summer, Celtic appear to have hit the accelerator early in the window to do a deal with Qarabag and tempt the player to Glasgow.

Former midfielder Rae has noted Celtic’s move for Duran and appears to be convinced about the Colombian’s quality.

Duran scored against a number of top sides in European competition for Qarabag and for Rae, that is enough to show he has real ability.

“I think the teams mentioned [Eintracht Frankfurt, Ajax, Newcastle, Benfica] are obviously high-quality, big names within European competitions”, Rae said on Clyde 1’s Supercoreboard (8.51).

“To get goals at that level, I think there were actually a lot of teams courting this guy throughout Europe.

“So, if Celtic can get him, that will be a bit of a coup for them because you want to try and get bodies in the building sooner rather than later.

“Martin O’Neill will want them to be going to Portugal in the next couple of days, trying to get them to bed into the training, the style Celtic play.

“So, the more bodies they can get through to door [the better].”

Celtic will be aware that assessing Duran’s level based on his displays in the Azerbaijan league will be a risk, meaning they are likely to be heavily leaning on what he did in Europe to judge him.

The Bhoys do have a crunch qualifier for the Champions League group stage to navigate later this summer and they failed to get over that hurdle last year, with a lack of recruitment seen as a contributing factor.