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Hopes for Boli Bolingoli will have been high at Celtic upon his £3m arrival at Parkhead back in 2019, with the Hoops subsequently selling first-choice left-back Kieran Tierney in the same transfer window.

Indeed, the defender had impressed over his 25 Bundesliga appearances for Rapid Vienna in the season prior, scoring two goals, registering two assists and helping his side keep eight clean sheets in the league, as well as making an average of two interceptions, 1.4 tackles, 1.2 clearances and winning 4.4 duels per game.

However, after making a mere 14 Scottish Premiership appearances in his debut campaign, things took a further turn for the worst for Bolingoli last season, when the left-back travelled to Spain without informing Celtic, as well as breaking quarantine restrictions on his return to Scotland.

This led to the left-back receiving a three-match ban from the Scottish FA, while Neil Lennon also took the decision to bomb the former Belgian U16 international out of his squad, with the club labelling his actions as “irresponsible” and the Northern Irishman sending him on loan to Istanbul Basaksehir for the duration of 2020/21.

In Turkey, the £12.5k-per-week man also failed to impress over his 12 Super Lig appearances, helping his side keep just two clean sheets, as well as making an average of 1.5 interceptions, 1.8 tackles, 0.9 clearances and winning 3.6 duels per fixture.

These returns saw the 26-year-old average a disappointing seasonal SofaScore match rating of 6.74, ranking him as Basaksehir’s 17th-worst performer in the Turkish top flight.

And, while Bolingoli has featured once for Celtic under the new leadership of Ange Postecoglou, the defender has been left out of the Celtic squad for the majority of their games this season, suggesting that the future does not look overly bright for the left-back at Parkhead.

Further still, as a result of this lack of game time over the past two seasons, Bolingoli’s value has plummeted from £3.15m at the time of his move to Scotland to just £1.98m today – meaning that, should Postecoglou wish to move the Belgian on any time soon, he will almost certainly have to take a loss in the transaction.

As such, with the benefit of hindsight, it would have to be said that Celtic’s former chief executive Peter Lawwell had something of a nightmare when signing Bolingoli back in 2019.

In other news: Forget Rogic: Ange could save Celtic millions by unleashing “fantastic” teen prodigy

West Ham United are interested in a deal to bring Mariano Diaz to the London Stadium in the January transfer window.

What’s the talk?

That’s according to a report by El Nacional, who claim that David Moyes’ West Ham transfer team have initiated talks with the Real Madrid centre-forward, with the Spanish media outlet going as far as to suggest that a deal for the 28-year-old is nearly complete.

The report goes on to state that Sevilla and Atletico Madrid are also interested in the striker, although it is believed that Los Blancos would much rather sell the former Dominican Republic international to a team outside of Spain.

Diaz can finally replace Arnautovic

While it is true that, following Marko Arnautovic’s £22.5m sale back in the summer of 2019, the club replaced the Austria international with the £45m signing of Sebastien Haller the following winter, it is undeniable that the Ivory Coast international failed to live up to his significant price tag in East London – scoring just 14 goals over his 54 appearances in all competitions for West Ham before being sold to Ajax for £20.25m last January.

And, while it is also true that Diaz has not exactly been in blistering form for Real Madrid since his £19.35m move back to the club back in 2018 – featuring in just 36 LaLiga games over the last three-and-a-half years – the 28-year-old nevertheless proved during his one season with Olympique Lyonnais that, when given the opportunity to do so, he can bring extraordinary returns.

Indeed, over his 34 Ligue 1 appearances back in 2017/18, the £6.3m-rated man scored a whopping 18 goals, registered four assists and created four big chances for his teammates, as well as taking an average of 2.9 shots and making 0.9 key passes per game.

These returns saw the £105k-per-week centre-forward who Gerald Baticle dubbed a “real goalscorer” earn a highly impressive seasonal SofaScore match rating of 7.06 – ranking him as Lyon’s seventh-best performer in the top flight of French football that season.

As such, while goalscoring returns are never 100% guaranteed, should West Ham go on to seal a deal for Diaz this month, and the 28-year-old can go on to replicate his form while in France in East London, the forgotten Real Madrid striker could well finally replace Arnautovic in the Hammers’ first-team squad – something which he undoubtedly has the ability to do.

In other news: Huge boost: Moyes drops fresh injury update that will have West Ham fans buzzing

Wolves and every other Premier League club only have hours left to conduct any late business before the 2022 January transfer window closes.

However, it seems as though Wolves fans can forget about seeing their club sign one player in particular that has been mentioned with a move to Molineux in the past few weeks that will be a very familiar face to a lot of Premier League followers.

What’s the news?

In a recent post on BBC Sport’s deadline day live update tracker, journalist Simon Stone had this to say on Wolves’ reported interest in signing Juventus and former Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey.

He said: “There have been rumours of a Wolves move for Juventus midfielder Aaron Ramsey. Ramsey has been frozen out in Italy and is open to returning to the Premier League. But I have been told Wolves are not one of the clubs expressing an interest.”

Having racked up 371 appearances for Arsenal in which he managed to score 65 goals and provide 65 assists, the 31-year-old joined Juventus in the 2019 summer transfer window.

Since then, the midfielder has made 70 appearances for the Serie A side with six goals and six assists under his belt but has now found himself apparently looking for a new club with Juventus aiming to move him on.

Fans will be gutted

Taking into account the amount of experience the Welshman has in terms of playing in the Premier League and the Champions League as well as winning trophies throughout his career, there will be some Wolves fans out there that will be gutted to hear that their club aren’t looking to bring the midfielder back to England.

After all, this is someone who would not only improve their depth in the centre of the pitch, but add a considerable amount of quality too. He has 40 goals and 51 assists during his Premier League career, suggesting he’d be a big signing for Lage and co.

However, with Wolves having the unflappable midfield duo of Ruben Neves and Joao Moutinho in their squad as well as having Leander Dendoncker and Luke Cundle as backup options, there is an argument to suggest that this isn’t the worst news in the world.

With that in mind, the club may be better off looking at other options if they do want to bring a new player in before the deadline.

In other news: “Wouldn’t surprise me..:” Journo drops Wolves deadline day claim, fans surely gushing – opinion

Aston Villa have taken young midfielder Taylor Clark on trial, according to Ashley Preece.

The Lowdown: Clark profiled

Clark is a midfielder who currently plies his trade with Suffolk-based Needham Market.

Described as an ‘unbelievably talented’ player by Needham manager Kevin Horlock, the 17-year-old has progressed through the club’s academy and recently started against Yeovil Town in the FA Trophy.

Villa bolstered their academy ranks in January with the acquisition of Kerr Smith from Dundee United, and although the deadline has now passed, it seems as if a cut-price move for Clark could be on the cards.

The Latest: Villa trial

Preece shared a story for Birmingham Live on Monday evening regarding Villa and Clark.

He stated that the youngster is set to train with Sean Verity’s under-18 side and will play in two academy games at Bodymoor Heath.

The Verdict: Interesting

It’s good to see that Villa are always on the hunt for young talent, and if Clark can impress sufficiently, he might just become the latest addition to the Midlanders’ ranks.

You’d expect that Villa may have to pay the non-league side a fee for the teenager should they wish to offer him a contract, but it could be a nominal sum due to his age and status with the lower league club.

It looks set to be one to watch out for over the coming weeks, with Villa potentially making a head start on their summer academy business.

In other news: ‘Hats off to the board’ – Sky Sports pundit purrs at ‘amazing’ out-of-the-blue Villa transfer news

Former Premier League marksman Kevin Phillips has given his reaction to transfer news involving Manchester United and Tammy Abraham. 

The lowdown: Abraham linked with Man United

Since joining Jose Mourinho at AS Roma from Chelsea last year, the 24-year-old has enjoyed a stellar campaign in Italy.

With the futures of Marcus Rashford, Edinson Cavani and Cristiano Ronaldo at Old Trafford all uncertain, the Red Devils were linked with a move for the former Blues ace by Italian news outlet Corriere della Sera.

The report claimed that United would be willing to spend €90m (£75m) on the England international, although Phillips doesn’t believe that it would be a wise move.

The latest: Phillips unsure on Abraham move

Speaking to Football Insider, the 2000 European Golden Shoe winner was asked whether spending big on Abraham at this juncture is a viable option.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Phillips warned against the expenditure, saying: “I’m not sure for that sort of money.

“Credit to the player for going over to Italy and take the challenge on. He is doing well and is scoring goals.

“We saw Lukaku do something similar when he left Man United to go to Inter Milan. He came back as a £100million player but that has not worked. That has not been the great success that we all thought it would be.

“I fear it would be a similar scenario with Abraham, to be honest. The football over there is nowhere near as competitive or as good as it is in the Premier League.

“Tammy found it hard at times when he was here. I’d be very cautious to spend that kind of money on him.”

The verdict: Heed the warning

Whilst the 10-cap England striker has enjoyed a career renaissance in Rome, one swallow doesn’t make a summer and United would be taking a huge risk with this deal.

So far this season, Abraham has scored 23 times and provided four assists. That is an even better tally than the Red Devils’ top scorer Ronaldo, who has 18 goals and three assists to his name in 2021/22.

However, signing the £40.5m-valued Abraham – who is under contract until 2026 (Transfermarkt) and therefore has a very secure future from Roma’s perspective – for the mooted £75m fee would undoubtedly be too big a stretch.

In other news: Man Utd closing in on new manager appointment. Read more here.

It could be time for West Ham to finally offload Manuel Lanzini this summer…

What’s the word?

According to El Intransigente, the Irons are prepared to sell the 28-year-old midfielder as he’s no longer an integral part of the squad, often finding himself out of the starting XI, and his former club River Plate are keen to bring him back to Argentina.

Lanzini only signed a contract extension in 2019, keeping him at the Hammers until 2023 after joining the east London club for £9m three years earlier.

Claret & Hugh also believe the attacking maestro is available for transfer if the right price is offered, but it remains to be seen exactly how much that is. The five-time international is currently valued at just €7m (£6m) by CIES Football Observatory and is thought to be raking in around £70,000 per week as one of the Irons’ highest earners.

Stealing a living

Barring the odd stunner – that goal against Tottenham this season springs to mind – Lanzini has not been the same player since he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament back in 2018.

Given his age, he’s rather unlikely to ever get back to his best – or at least the level required for a likely European battle next term.

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In the last three seasons, the Argentina playmaker has failed to score more than one goal and provide more than two assists in the Premier League. That’s a total of two goals and four assists across three years, as per WhoScored, and that is simply not good enough.

The Hammers also signed Said Benrahma in the summer transfer win dow and will push to keep hold of Jesse Lingard, so there’s really no need to keep Lanzini festering away on their books. As Frank McAvennie told Football FanCast exclusively this month, the 28-year-old is “a luxury player.”

Darren Bent once told Football Insider that the midfielder had “wonderful feet” and was “certainly a top player,” but on the above evidence, he hasn’t delivered for some time and is merely stealing a living at this point.

Any fee accrued from his departure and the burden of his wages lifted off the club’s books could go towards a new signing or two, and we know how desperate Moyes will be for a striker, so it certainly makes sense to get rid of Lanzini sooner rather than later.

It’s time to show no mercy and offload the West Ham flop this summer.

AND in other news, Forget Abraham: £18m-rated “monster” could take West Ham to a new level…

Aston Villa must win the race to sign Reading starlet Michael Olise in this summer’s transfer window.

What’s the story?

Reports in recent months had suggested that the 19-year-old is on Dean Smith’s radar as the manager looks to rejuvenate his Villa squad with younger talent, but it appears that they now face significant competition for his signature.

Football Insider claimed that fellow Premier League club Leeds United are keen on making an early summer move for the French talent, with the likes of Liverpool and Tottenham also said to be interested in signing him.

Could be Villa’s new Grealish

Dubbed as “super talented” by Reading manager Veljko Paunović, the teenager has earned rave reviews for his skill, with Jose Gomes, his former boss at the Madejski Stadium, adding: “Michael is really special. He can see, even before receiving the ball, more options than regular players. His technical ability and speed, decision capacity is really, really good.”

That speed of thought to which Gomes is referring is something very much akin to Villa talisman Jack Grealish, who has been the main source of inspiration for Smith’s side this season – he has managed 12 assists in the Premier League.

Grealish’s tally of assists is almost matched by Olise, who has recorded ten in the Championship alone this term, as well as adding a further five goals to his name.

That level of creativity is something Villa desperately miss whenever Grealish is out of the side – you only have to look at how they’ve managed just three goals in the past five games when their talisman has been sidelined.

While Olise is by no means the finished article, his numbers in the key areas in which Grealish excels makes him a very promising player for Villa to lure to the club.

The teenager ranks in the top 12 for most fouled players per game in the Championship (Grealish ranks top in the Premier League), and is fifth for key passes in the division (the Villa man is also top for that metric).

It’s exactly why Villa sporting director Johan Lange must win the race for the 19-year-old, and with a reported release clause of around £8m for Olise, it’s surely a no-brainer to go all-out for him.

Meanwhile, Villa should unleash this academy talent…

When you collect Sunderland’s transfer business from the last decade into one neat pile, it doesn’t particularly paint a pretty picture.

Whether your name is Danny Graham, Jozy Altidore or Jack Rodwell, you all form part of a rather disastrous point in the football club’s history.

That being said, there is arguably none worse than a certain Will Grigg, someone who Sunderland were desperate to buy and are now desperate to get rid of.

On paper, he looked like an inspirational piece of business when he arrived in 2019. The Mackems had just lost Josh Maja to Bordeaux and they needed a proven goalscorer to fire them to promotion.

Considering Grigg had netted 26 goals the season prior to his arrival, you wouldn’t have bet against him scoring regularly at the Stadium of Light.

Even if Sunderland hadn’t paid an extortionate fee for his services, he would have been a waste of money. Stewart Donald made several bids for the former Wigan striker before the Black Cats eventually coughed up £4m on transfer deadline day.

Tony Coton sat back in his chair in despair as Donald paid considerably over the odds for a player of his ability.

The Sunderland hierarchy thought he’d deliver on the big stage and ultimately put them in the Championship. Though, they couldn’t have been more wrong.

Grigg finished the 2018/19 campaign with just four league goals. Since then, he has found the net on just four more occasions for the Mackems in what has been a torrid spell in the north-east. His Sunderland career has been so poor that even Kevin Phillips had some choice words for the Northern Irishman.

The Sunderland hero said earlier this season: “There was not one thing that I saw him do well. No real work rate and at times it was like he was hiding. But when they start back there will be no crowd there and that might help him because it looked to me as if the crowd really affected him.”

Indeed, the significant slump in his value since he signed says it all. For a player that cost Sunderland a whopping £4m, he is now worth just £1.08m according to Transfermarkt; a fall in valuation of 75%.

Grigg is now on loan at MK Dons where he is at least beginning to find the net again. Under Russell Martin, the forward has scored three times and registered three assists in six starts.

That will do little to please those at Sunderland, however. Once the summer window comes round, he should be one of the first out the door.

Unfortunately, the £6k-per-week forward will leave having cost the club more than they could arguably have afforded.

AND in other news, Forget Grigg: SAFC must unleash rarely-seen gem next term, Ross said he’s an “enigma”…

Celtic saw a massive amount of transfer activity take place during the previous summer window in terms of the number of players that moved in and out of the club.

One player that ended up waving goodbye to the Parkhead club is midfielder Olivier Ntcham.

Having joined the Hoops back in the 2017 summer transfer window from Manchester City for a fee of £4.5m, the Frenchman ended up making 147 appearances for the Bhoys across all competitions.

In those appearances, the 26-year-old found the back of the net 24 times and delivered 13 assists.

After spending a short loan spell with Marseille between February and June last year, the midfielder finally found himself leaving Celtic on a permanent basis as he join Championship club Swansea City on a free transfer.

Since then, the former City youngster has made 33 appearances for the Welsh club in the Championship, prior to their match against Reading.

Despite scoring four goals and providing three assists in those appearances, the midfielder’s overall performances have not been particularly impressive.

Even though he has the second-highest number of shots this season in Swansea’s squad with 55, only 19 of them have been on target.

From a defensive point of view, the £14k-per-week former Hoops gem has only managed to make 12 interceptions and eight tackles in addition to committing 14 tackles and picking up three yellow cards.

His overall performances have earned Ntcham a rather underwhelming season rating of 6.55/10 according to WhoScored, which would put him among some of the lowest-rated players in Ange Postecoglou’s squad to start more than one league game by the same metric.

Having been labelled as a “disgrace” in the past for his performances for Celtic by Noel Whelan, there isn’t much in his time at Swansea that will have made many people at the Parkhead club wish they had kept hold of him.

As well as this, Alan Hutton claimed that the midfielder “downed tools” during the latter stages of his spell with the Bhoys, which also makes it easy to see why the club got rid of him and why they will now be having the last laugh.

Taking all of this into account, it seems as though it was a masterclass from Postecoglou to sanction this move for Ntcham to join Swansea.

With the Hoops boasting the best attacking and defensive record in the SPFL, it’s hard to imagine many supporters wishing they still had the Frenchman in their ranks.

In other news: Ange can finally axe £10.5k-p/w Celtic disaster with “unbelievable” £5m “terrier”

Celtic are set to face Livingston this evening for the second consecutive match as they hope to redeem some of their Premiership disappointment. The Hoops remain second in the table, trailing to runaway leaders and arch rivals Rangers.

The Gers have an enormous 21-point advantage thanks to their unstoppable form and some major dips in the road for Celtic. Neil Lennon and his men will return from their recent 10-day self-isolation period and look to hopefully get three points on the board.

Last time out, the Bhoys couldn’t find a way past Livingston’s defence, with the match ending in a 0-0 draw. They are now without a win in their last three outings and are in desperate need of boosting morale around camp.

Whilst the manager and 14 of his senior players were in quarantine, Gavin Strachan stepped in and was forced to field a skeleton crew squad. Youth players like Cameron Harper and Karamoko Dembele enjoyed some first team action, but it was some of the more senior players who weren’t up to scratch.

Diego Laxalt for example was particularly disappointing against Livingston at the weekend. According to Sofascore, the AC Milan loanee lost possession 26 times, with only Shane Duffy losing the ball more (28).

The left-back was also dribbled past twice and committed three fouls, showing how uncomfortable he appeared against the Livingston attack. Lennon will not want any mistakes hindering his chances of banking a win tonight and should maybe look at swapping Laxalt out of the squad.

Greg Taylor is waiting in the wings for his chance to re-assert himself at the club. He has made only sporadic appearances so far this season and has failed to make it off the bench for the last four matches, according to Transfermarkt.

The 23-year-old will relish the chance to show he can deliver the goods, especially with the uncertainty over whether Laxalt’s loan move will become permanent or not. If the £22,000 per week Uruguayan returns to Milan, Taylor has a golden opportunity to become Lennon’s first choice left-back. This could start with a solid performance against Livingston this evening.

In other news, signing Benjamin Siegrist would be the end of Scott Bain…