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Conte admits Chelsea came close to signing Celtic goalkeeper in January

Conte admits Chelsea came close to signing Celtic goalkeeper in January

The January transfer campaign of Chelsea was full of speculations although the Blues failed to complete big signings last month. Antonio Conte’s side, however, sold Oscar to Shaghai SIPG for € 60 million. The Brazilian’s departure is Chelsea’s most important transfer activity in the winter transfer window.

Ahead of today’s Arsenal clash, Antonio Conte has revealed that the Blues came close to signing one new player in the previous transfer window: Celtic goalkeeper Craig Gordon.

Gordon would have become Chelsea’s second-choice goalkeeper in place of Asmir Begovic who had asked to leave the club to get more game time. Conte has admitted transfer talks with the 34-year-old goalkeeper but admitted that Celtic refused to sell the experienced shot-stopper.

“We tried to sign Gordon because we tried to help Asmir Begovic to satisfy his request to go and play every game”, Conte said.

“I always told him [Begovic] that if we were able to find a right solution, he could leave. For sure Gordon was one of the goalkeepers in the list to try to bring in here. We tried, but Celtic told us it was not possible to sell.”

As for Gordon team-mate Moussa Dembele, Conte has revealed that Chelsea never made contact to sign him in January despite reports in England claim the Premier League table leaders offered € 35 million to sign the Frenchman in January.