{"id":608142,"date":"2022-01-19T08:11:03","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T13:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=608142"},"modified":"2022-01-20T15:40:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T20:40:29","slug":"matt-oriley-celtic-mk-dons-midfielder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/01\/19\/matt-oriley-celtic-mk-dons-midfielder\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtic Complete Signing of MK Dons Midfielder Matt O&#8217;Riley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/12\/29\/challenging-six-months-ange-postecoglou\/\" target=\"_self\">Celtic<\/a> have completed the signing of MK Dons midfielder Matt O&#8217;Riley, the Scottish Premiership side have confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>O&#8217;Riley joins the club on a four-and-a-half-year deal after Celtic activated a reported \u00a31.5 million release clause in his contract.<\/p>\n<p>The former <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/09\/09\/real-madrid-fulham-fabio-carvalho\/\" target=\"_self\">Fulham<\/a> youngster had been linked with a move to the Championship, with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/11\/20\/matt-grimes-deal-swansea-city\/\" target=\"_self\">Swansea City<\/a> and Blackburn Rovers interested.<\/p>\n<h2>Matt O&#8217;Riley Joins Celtic From MK Dons<\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\ud83d\udcdd\ud83c\udd95 Our \ud835\udc8f\ud835\udc86\ud835\udc98\ud835\udc86\ud835\udc94\ud835\udc95 January signing&#8230; \ud83d\udfe2\u26aa<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mattoriley8?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@mattoriley8<\/a> has joined <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CelticFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#CelticFC<\/a> on a four-and-a-half year deal, subject to international clearance! \ud83d\ude4c <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WelcomeMatt?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#WelcomeMatt<\/a>\ud83c\udf40<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CelticFC\/status\/1484260999402340352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 20, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>A Key Player for the Dons<\/h3>\n<p>After joining MK Dons in January last year on a free transfer from Fulham, O&#8217;Riley became a massive player for the club.<\/p>\n<p>In 23 league appearances last season, he contributed three goals and two assists. This season, he took a massive jump in that regard, scoring seven and assisting a further six in 26 matches.<\/p>\n<p>A report from <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/news\/celtic-closing-in-on-deal-to-sign-matt-oriley-from-mk-dons\/QpesClRwmFgP\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Athletic<\/a> says that Fulham could be due a &#8216;sizeable&#8217; sell-on fee, which could be as much as 50%.<\/p>\n<h3>No Russell Martin Reunion<\/h3>\n<p>O&#8217;Riley had been one of several MK Dons players linked with a move to Swansea, who are managed by former Dons boss <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/football-league-blog\/2021\/nov\/18\/swansea-russell-martin-manager-philosophy\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Russell Martin<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Swans have already managed to poach goalkeeper Andrew Fisher, which led to Steven Benda heading out on loan to Peterborough United and the Dons bringing in Jamie Cumming on loan from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/01\/17\/chelsea-ivan-perisic-layvin-kurzawa\/\" target=\"_self\">Chelsea<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Defender<a href=\"https:\/\/the72.co.uk\/260162\/transfer-tracker-whats-the-latest-on-swansea-citys-pursuit-of-mk-dons-harry-darling\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Harry Darling<\/a> had also been mentioned as a target for Martin, but that move appears to be off too, meaning he&#8217;s likely to land just one of his former players.<\/p>\n<h3>Busy Window Continues for Celtic<\/h3>\n<p>The signing of O&#8217;Riley continues another busy transfer window for Celtic.<\/p>\n<p>Postecoglou&#8217;s side have already splashed out on Reo Hatate and Yosuke Ideguchi from the J1 League, while Daizen Maeda also joins from Yokohama F.M. on loan.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"nrcjOGcETE12uhJCdPPM1g\" 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\/1334741754\" 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:'nrcjOGcETE12uhJCdPPM1g',sig:'yVDXjZcZ_q4KD93bDX9XuokDYlRGoP4aUpkDcJEmOu4=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1334741754',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Celtic have completed the signing of MK Dons midfielder Matt O&#8217;Riley, the Scottish Premiership side have confirmed. O&#8217;Riley joins the club on a four-and-a-half-year deal after Celtic activated a reported \u00a31.5 million release clause in his contract. The former Fulham youngster had been linked with a move to the Championship, with Swansea City and Blackburn [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1144,"featured_media":608143,"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":[32,8428,34,30,8427,28],"tags":[8769,5316],"class_list":["post-608142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-celtic","category-league12","category-news","category-scottish-premiership","category-transfers","tag-ange-postecoglou","tag-matt-oriley"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608142","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\/1144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}