Former Leicester City defender Danny Simpson has revealed that he came close to joining Celtic during the summer of 2019.
During his time at Leicester, he was part of the squad who won the league title under Claudio Ranieri but almost headed north to Glasgow three years later.
Brendan Rodgers departed the Hoops in February 2019 and headed south to Leicester where he has remained in charge for four years now. He tried to broker the deal back to his old club as he knew that Neil Lennon was on the lookout for a new right back.
Long time servant Mikael Lustig left during that summer and the Hoops had to find a replacement. They eventually brought in Hatem Abd Elhamed and Manchester City youngster Jeremie Frimpong.
It looks as though the club opting to make a move for Frimpong made a lot more sense as he departed Glasgow 18 months later to move to Germany for a fee which could rise to more than £11 million as well as having a sell-on clause.
There has been rumoured interest in the 22-year-old Bayer Leverkusen star from a number of clubs including Manchester United.
“It was a bit of a mess that summer (2019), to be honest with you. A couple of things didn’t work out. I was going to sign for Celtic, three years with Neil Lennon all sorted and boxed off,” said Simpson speaking to [Under the Cosh Podcast].
“I was leaving Leicester and Brendan helped with that because he left Celtic and he knew everyone and he said ‘Danny would be great’. It ticked all of my boxes leaving Leicester for Celtic, but it fell through and other clubs had then signed right-backs.”
It’s always interesting to hear stories like this come out years later. He would have been 32 at the time and brought plenty of experience to the team although looking at the bigger picture, Frimpong was a much better option.
