{"id":597718,"date":"2021-07-31T09:05:30","date_gmt":"2021-07-31T13:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=597718"},"modified":"2021-07-31T09:05:30","modified_gmt":"2021-07-31T13:05:30","slug":"celtic-continue-george-baldock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/31\/celtic-continue-george-baldock\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtic to Continue Pursuit of Sheffield United&#8217;s George Baldock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/29\/celtics-rebuild-looking-painful-for-fans\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Celtic<\/a> are set to continue their pursuit to sign <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/22\/aaron-ramsdale-arsenal-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Sheffield United<\/a> right-back George Baldock according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.co.uk\/sport\/football\/sheffield-united\/sheffield-united-celtic-set-to-press-ahead-in-their-pursuit-of-blades-star-despite-damaging-blow-3329492\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Shield of the Sheffield Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This is despite Celtic&#8217;s Champions League exit to Danish side Midtjylland appearing to damage their hopes of signing the 28-year-old.<\/p>\n<h2>Celtic&#8217;s Continuing Pursuit of George Baldock<\/h2>\n<h3>Hoops Eager to Solve Right-Back Problem<\/h3>\n<p>Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou is eager to solve their right-back issues quickly. Currently, they only have one recognised senior right-back in Anthony Ralston.<\/p>\n<p>Ralston has put in some impressive performances in pre-season but clearly, a more experienced right-back is needed.<\/p>\n<p>Celtic have been linked to a number of right-backs in recent weeks. Frenchman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyrecord.co.uk\/sport\/football\/football-transfer-news\/brandon-soppy-celtic-transfer-news-24558704\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandon Soppy<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1420310782491889666\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aurelio Buta<\/a> have been lined up with a move to Parkhead. However, it appears that a move for George Baldock could still be on.<\/p>\n<p>According to James Shield, Celtic are only prepared to pay \u00a35 million for the 28-year-old. But with Baldock&#8217;s contract expiring next summer, the Hoops will be looking to drive down that price.<\/p>\n<p>After their defeat to Midtjylland, Ange Postecoglou reiterated the need to add to his depleted squad.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.co.uk\/sport\/football\/sheffield-united\/sheffield-united-celtic-set-to-press-ahead-in-their-pursuit-of-blades-star-despite-damaging-blow-3329492\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">He said<\/a>: &#8220;I\u2019m the person who has been put in charge. I obviously haven\u2019t done a good enough job of convincing people we needed to bring people in.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sc-fKGOjr gakbDw markup\">\n<p>\u201cI have been trying to be as forceful as I can about what we need to bring in, and the challenges we have had are well chronicled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe I wasn\u2019t clear enough. But I think I have been pretty consistent in saying that we need more players and the club is working hard to bring them in.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>What Baldock Would Bring<\/h3>\n<p>George Baldock would bring much-needed experience to an inexperienced back-line. The defence against Midtjylland had an average age of just 21.<\/p>\n<p>The 28-year-old has been at Bramall Lane since 2017. He has made 139 appearances in all competitions, scoring four goals.\u00a0He was one of Sheffield United&#8217;s most consistent performers in the Premier League and would be a very good signing for Celtic.<\/p>\n<p>But the fee will be the big stumbling block, with Celtic unlikely to pay for \u00a35 million for a 28-year-old who is unlikely to have any sell-on value.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"iQAsun2_RWlKOmPyvr7Bvw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1233064730\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'iQAsun2_RWlKOmPyvr7Bvw',sig:'xEb0cbYVTUxkNxTGfdb41LnBQkTc_MJbdtUv_aoQl4o=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1233064730',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Celtic are set to continue their pursuit to sign Sheffield United right-back George Baldock according to James Shield of the Sheffield Star. This is despite Celtic&#8217;s Champions League exit to Danish side Midtjylland appearing to damage their hopes of signing the 28-year-old. Celtic&#8217;s Continuing Pursuit of George Baldock Hoops Eager to Solve Right-Back Problem Celtic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3946,"featured_media":597735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8427,8428,33,32,7188,3839,28],"tags":[6657],"class_list":["post-597718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scottish-premiership","category-celtic","category-championship","category-league-football","category-rumours","category-sheffield-united","category-transfers","tag-george-baldock"],"modified_by":"Tom Cunningham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3946"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}