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Town Win Race to Sign Celina Friday, 16th Jun 2017 09:32
Town have won the race to sign Manchester City youngster Bersant Celina on a season-long loan and the 20-year-old is expected to complete his move to the Blues later today.
Bolton had looked strong favourites to recruit the Kosovo international for 2017/18 but Sky Sports reported earlier this morning that the Blues were set to land the winger and TWTD understands that that is indeed the case with Celina to travel to Portman Road today to formalise the deal.
The player himself suggested that Bolton were leading the chase earlier in the week, while Leeds and QPR were also understood to have shown interest in the highly-rated youngster.
Having moved to Norway as a two-year-old, Celina was with Strømsgodset as schoolboy before joining Manchester City at 15.
Prizren-born Celina, who is contracted to City until 2020, spent 2016/17 on loan with Dutch side FC Twente, scoring five times and picking up five assists in 27 appearances. Twente were believed to keen for him to return next season.
Capped six times by Kosovo at full level, scoring once, Celina has made one Premier League sub appearance for City in addition to two starts and one game from the bench in the FA Cup.
In addition to signing Celina, the Blues are also likely to confirm Joe Garner's £1 million move from Rangers today with only very minor details still to be completed.
Photo: Action Images
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Looking forward to seeing him play. We have a good record with loan player over the last few years, well most of them anyway.
I am also looking forward to the day when we can sign players of this calibre on a permanent basis, but that is a long way off, so I make do with the loan system.
It would be great to get Lawrence and Huws back also.
Wow I like this, I'm surprised he chose us given he had other options closer to home so well done to all concerned! Maybe seeing Lawrence do so well for us last season might of motivated him to come here and try and do similar as it really can put you in the shop window having 1 breakthrough season in the Championship. I love to watch quality players with skill and pace so hopefully he ticks the boxes and will give us something to cheer about next season. I have to say I'm feeling a little more optimistic about next season on hearing this news! No guarantees he'll hit the ground running but I'm hoping he'll give us something to cheers about once he settles into life at Portman Road. If we keep this up and sign a few more quality players I'm going to have to consider taking down my Marcus Evans "Wake Up or Sell Up" Avatar pic! Still want the Dino out though as he's well behind the times in regards to modern football tactics and thinking and doesn't get the most out of our youth players given how differently he sets the 1st team up compared to the way they are taught to play in our academy. Sadly there really is no natural progression whatsoever in that respect and that's down solely to the Dinobore!
Hope this works, but quality is no guarantee under Mick. AMN was lighting it up last week for the U20s. will be in Arsene's 1st team squad next season, but could not cut it at ITFC.
Am really hoping he knows something of our transfer plans and intentions for the season that we don't yet. here we go again.....can feel the pre-season optimism sneaking up. Hope we not being fooled yet again.
I know nothing about him but am excited that though we were in a race with two other clubs for his signature, for once we won it. I haven't been this thrilled since we beat Millwall to Jamie Peters.
Agree with most on here that it is great to see us be able to sign a player that other clubs around us were interested in. Looks to be an exciting talent, excitement is exactly what we need to get some bums back on seats.
Great news and a winger as well :) Great to hear we actually beat some other clubs to a highly rated player and the kid looks to have some real talent. Shame not a permanent signing though but highly rated youngster from Man City you can see why. Welcome to Ipswich and looking forward to seeing what he can do. Him and Lawrence could have been awesome together ;)
Sounds like a good signing BUT will he fit into the ethos of a Mick McCarthy team?...he obviously has talent and wouldn't have been bought by a team like City otherwise but it really makes you think are we really building a team for the future here if we keep relying on different Premiership loanees for the main stay when it comes to creativity?
I don't think Celina would have been given much of a choice over which club he was going to play for next year. Clearly Man City wold have been thinking about the right kind of club to send him to so that he would improve his skills and knowledge. It must say a lot about the club, its management and the club's ethos that Man C chose Ipswich. Definately good news for us going into next season.
I have heard from a very good source (he comes from Kosovo) Celina is a very exciting and brilliant prospect and he already plays for the national team, although Kosovo are very new to the international scene, his simply raving about him, so good work ITFC on this one. If your looking at the bigger picture like I am though, then things are beginning to fall into place nicely from a ITFC point of view. 1/ sign a few players, 2/ add your token marquee loan signing, 3/ Season ticket sales will increase on the back of this, with the usual euphoria and expectation levels which a new season undoubtably always brings, 4/ Town will announce the Dino is staying, 5/ the Dino's ploy will be to win a few games and get the fans back on side, as he mentioned on a couple of occasions last season and all things will be 'fine and fecking dandy again.. This is all ohh so predictable from my point of view, i will always back the team as a whole, but I just ain't buying into this same old 'pony' again, so for me it's still very much of the case that the Dino has to go, until then I ain't really that bothered. (Honest).
I have seen this lad play, he is class, plus has aggression, is direct will take players on and can send in a decent cross. I can see him being as big a hit as Tomm Lawrence was last season. He is captain for Kosovo U 21.
will we ruin him like we did maitland niles who looked very good for the u20s who won the world cup lat week playing in centre mid no less, lets hope hes better than alex henshall :)
A breath of fresh air with a Winger coming to my club but as always I have issues on how McCarthy will treat this lad.If he is to forward minded or not doing the donkey work as a defender Mick will bin him.Hopefully hes not spending most of his time looking after a center back at right full one of the huge problems we have as a team.
Without doubt there have been some recent steps in the right direction of late: 1. Reduction of matchday pricing and early bird season ticket [though not enough IMO] 2. Half way decent signings of Garner and Spence 3. This loan [albeit that its a loan] is also a positive move
My observation is that I suspect ME has realised that he has reached the threshold in terms of how far supporters are prepared to be taken for complete mugs before he has to do something. Assuming this is the case, it's a pretty poor show, however I do acknowledge one or two positive actions in the last week or so. However, the signing of Spence, Garner and another loan, however welcome, in no way fits the laughable 5 point plan.
So with this in mind, can I now look forward to the seeing a side including the likes of Dozzell, Bishop and Kenlock as well as these and some other sensible signings [such as Huws] playing entertaining, attacking football to a stadium with 20k plus supporters who feel appreciated and not taken for granted by an absent owner, and a puppet MD?
None of this is rocket science - we'll know by about Christmas.
If you go onto the squad page you will see that 45 players were given numbers last season. However, if you exclude the loans, the players who are leaving, the ones who have been told to go away and those that never played a single minute then you are left with: Keepers; Bart, Gerken Full-backs; Emmanuel, Knudsen, Kenlock Centre-backs; Chambers, Smith, Webster Midfield; Bishop, Skuse, Ward, Dozzell, Rowe Forwards; Sears, McGoldrick, Moore That is just 16 players. Ok Hyam should come back, but McGoldrick won't play a full season. In no particular order we need a right-back, a left sided centre-back, a winger and two centre-forwards. Celibate and Garner are a start, but only a start. Or are we going to start chucking the kids in?
We've signed spence so with Emanuel that covers the right back position. We probably do need another centre half (unless Taylor is offered a new contract) that leaves us with Chambers, Smith, Webster and Taylor which is pretty solid.
The club is starting to take shape. Still need more additions but it's safe to say we are heading in the right direction and it does look for the first time since Mick took over that we are looking at really changing the squad to make us competitive again.
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