Sources: FC Arouca in advanced talks to sign Celtic star Ismaila Soro
Celtic midfielder Ismaila Soro is in advanced talks to join FC Arouca, sources have told Football Insider.
The 24-year-old has been left out of the Glasgow giants’ pre-season tour so he can finalise a loan move to the Portugese club.
Celtic boss Ange Postecoglu has given the green light to Soro leaving as he does not consider him a key part of his first-team plans for the new season.
The Scottish outfit have made the Ivorian available for sale or for loan.
FC Arouca, who play in the Primeira Liga, the Portugese top tier, have swooped in to agree terms with Celtic and the player.
Soro has been keen to find a new team for next season after struggling to establish himself at Parkhead since his arrival in 2020 from Bnei Yehuda.
He has been linked with Serbian club Partizan Belgrade as well as Neil Lennon’s Omonia Nicosia.
Lennon was the manager when Soro joined Celtic in January 2020 for a fee of around £2million.
He initially has a knee injury that sidelined him and it was not until the second half of the calamitous 2020-21 campaign that he started to establish himself as a regular.
But Soro struggled to convince Postecoglu and featured just 19 times across 665 minutes last season.
That included just a single Scottish Premiership start for the central midfielder, who was behind the likes of Callum McGregor, Reo Hatate, Yosuke Ideguchi, David Turnbull and James McCarthy in the pecking order.
In other news, Celtic told to sign ‘next Scott Brown’ after journalist’s update.