Celtic ready to launch bid for Stoke City star

According to BBC Sport, Scottish giants Celtic are ready to rekindle their interest in relegated Stoke City star Joe Allen.

It was a disappointing season for the men from the Potteries as a 10-year stretch in the Premier League ended with relegation back to English football’s second tier competition.

Next season, rather than travelling to Stamford Bridge to play Chelsea or The Etihad to face Manchester City, Stoke face away journeys to the likes of Millwall, Preston North End and Rotherham United.

With relegation obviously comes a degree of restructuring as players such as high-earners or those with top-flight aspirations look for employ elsewhere. Other teams also tend to look at relegated sides with an element of cherry-picking on their mind.

In that mindset Stoke will have to ready themselves for interest in former Liverpool midfielder Joe Allen. The 28-year-old, 42-cap Wales international joined the Potters from Liverpool for a fee of £14 million in late July 2016.

In last season’s Premier League campaign, Allen featured in 36 of Stoke’s 38 games – scoring twice and providing six assists. The Mirror admit that midfielder Allen is “expected to be in hot demand” as one of 15 first team players that new manager Gary Rowett is expected to move on due to relegation.

However, The Mirror do go on to say that those behind the scenes at the Bet365 Stadium hope to convince Allen, who has a £25 million buy-out clause in his contract, to stay at the club. They admit that clause is only activated should a top-six side bid but, “despite interest from former boss Brendan Rogers at Celtic”, Stoke are hoping that Allen “may buy into the new regime” and ethos that comes with Rowett’s appointment.

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