Celtic winger Jota to miss League Cup final

 

Celtic winger Jota has been ruled out of the League Cup final with a hamstring injury.

He was substituted during Celtic’s 1-0 win over Hearts and with immediate fears he would be sidelined for several weeks.

Ahead of their final Europa League group match against Real Betis on Thursday, Postecoglou revealed the on-loan attacker is out for the showpiece occasion at Hampden Park on December 19.

“It’s going to be three-four weeks recovery depending how he goes so if you look at timelines it gets pretty tight for between now and the break.”

Celtic are expected to trigger Jota’s £6.5m option-to-buy clause before the end of the season.

The winger has impressed since moving from Portuguese club Benfica in the summer, scoring eight goals in all competitions so far.

Celtic are reportedly targeting moves for Japanese trio Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate and Yosuke Ideguchi.

Manager Ange Postecoglou has already tapped into the J-League market with success, bringing in striker Kyogo Furuhashi from Vissel Kobe in the summer.

He would not confirm names but said things are progressing well for January.

Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou is confident any transfer business will be completed early in January.

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“We are working hard on it, there are always things that you need to sort of overcome on a daily basis, particularly with the way the world is at the moment in terms of how we have discussions and how we follow up on things.

“I am still really happy with the way things are tracking and I still expect us to be well organised and have the people we want in place hopefully early in the transfer window.