Ste Hoare 
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Southampton winger Mohamed Elyounoussi, who spent the 2019/20 season on loan at Celtic, is keen to sign for the Hoops on a permanent deal, according to a report from Football Insider.
They claim that the 25-year-old is keen to make his switch to the Scottish champions into a permanent transfer, although there are still a couple of hurdles that would need to be overcome before that could become a possibility.
Firstly, Football Insider report that Saints quoted Celtic a price of between £8m-£10m when they last enquired about a potential transfer but with football’s finances taking a massive hit due to the global health crisis, that fee would likely need to come down for the Hoops to be able to afford a deal.
The second issue is the player’s wages. Football Insider report that Elyounoussi is earning £60,000-a-week from Saints, an amount that would almost certainly be out of Celtic’s price range.
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Elyounoussi had a very good spell at Celtic prior to his injury and keeping him on a permanent deal would be a very good coup for the Hoops, but those stumbling blocks mentioned above are two big, big issues to overcome.
We just can’t see Celtic having the ability to pay up the £8m-£10m that Saints have apparently been asking for, given the current state of the world.
Added to that, Elyounoussi would need to agree to a major pay-cut and there’s no guarentee he’d be willing to do that.
It would be nice to think that the Norwegian will become a Celtic player this summer, but as it stands, we think the chances of that happening are pretty slim.
