Celtic slap £17.5m price tag on ‘fantastic’ Josip Juranovic amid West Ham United interest
West Ham United will have to pay at least £17.5million if they want to sign Celtic right-back Josip Juranovic, according to Foot365 journalist Ignazio Genuardi.
The Croatian international was one of the stars of the Qatar World Cup as he helped his nation to the semi-finals of the tournament, eventually losing to winners Argentina.
Gary Neville was especially impressed by the 27-year-old as he described his performances at the World Cup as “fantastic” on ITV’s live coverage (13 December, 06:45pm).
“A French club inquired about the availability of the Croatian right side Juranovic, but Celtic seems particularly greedy (around 20million Euros (£17.5million). Outside Ligue 1, West Ham is notably in the ranks,” Genuardi said via his personal Twitter account.
Juranovic started six of Croatia’s seven matches in Qatar and was among the standout players alongside Ballon D’Or winner Luka Modric and defensive colossus Josko Gvardiol.
Too much
He may have shone in the Middle East but that does not suddenly put his price tag up to such a ridiculous amount so West Ham really should avoid making any move for him until it comes drastically down.
David Moyes is not short of right-backs at the moment with Ben Johnson, Vladimir Coufal and Thilo Kehrer all having played there at some point this season and Harrison Ashby waiting in the wings too.
The Irons spent heavily in the summer too so they might not have that kind of cash lying around to throw at Celtic in order to sign Juranovic, especially if their new-found love for Brazilian players starts to flex its muscles.
If there are suddenly a number of exits from the London Stadium in January then perhaps the Hammers could go in for a move and they should have plenty of time to do so because it would be bizarre to see a club willingly spend that much unless they were in a true panic.