Sunday, July 24, 2016

By Joe McHugh

Eoghan O’Connell scored for Celtic in their 1-1 draw with Leicester City as Kolo Toure watched from the stand at Parkhead.

The former Liverpool defender arrived in Glasgow this morning and underwent a medical having verbally agreed terms to join Celtic.

With Toure being added to a squad that already includes Erik Sviachenko, Jozo Simunovic, Dedryck Boyata and Efe Ambrose, O’Connell knows that his opportunities will be limited.

“Hopefully by tomorrow that will be done,” Brendan Rodgers revealed about the Toure deal.

“It will be great for us, I took him to Liverpool, he has experience and you could see the impact he had for them, he was a real stalwart towards the end and helped them to the Europa League Final.

“He looks after himself well, that’ll be completed tomorrow and he’ll be an invaluable player for us.”

Looking back on the match that ended with a penalty shoot out win for the English champions Rodgers added: “We saw the quality of Leicester but I felt that our players were excellent, they are in-between games in the Champions League qualifiers but there was a good intensity to our play.

“To be behind and come back was pleasing, it was an excellent goal from young Eoghan, one that we deserved.”

Discussing his goal O’Connell, who was on loan at Cork City earlier this year, said: “It was great to get my first goal, the ball appeared and I just managed to steer it in.

“A few of the lads were laughing (at O’Connell taking, and scoring a penalty), I’ve scored a few of them in training.

“The match was really good for us, it sets us up nicely for Europe. We’ve played a few games than Leicester, we have a big game on Wednesday and this match has done us a lot of good.”

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