Celtic face battle with Bolton to sign Rapaic
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Your support makes all the difference.Martin O'Neill, the Celtic manager, faces a battle with Bolton Wanderers to sign the Croatian World Cup player, Milan Rapaic.
The striker, who was released from his contract by Fenerbahce last month, played in a closed-door game for the Glasgow club yesterday, but Bolton have now shown their interest and are willing to offer Rapaic a deal until the end of the season. The Bolton manager, Sam Allardyce, hopes to talk to Rapaic today.
Rapaic wanted to see Celtic first, but his advisors revealed that nothing has yet been settled and that Bolton had become an interesting option to them. Bolton had also been keen on Stanislav Varga, a defender, before he also went to Celtic, where O'Neill is likely to offer him a short-term deal.
O'Neill stepped in to broker a move with an English-based agent he is close to and insiders claim that Varga will be signed in the next few days.
The Celtic manager had been looking for an available centre-half and turned to Varga after failing in an attempt to sign another Sunderland defender, Emerson Thome.
Peter Schmeichel will be given the final call on whether he is fit enough for a return to Old Trafford on Sunday. The Dane has missed Manchester City's last three games with a calf injury, but the City manager, Kevin Keegan is hoping the veteran goalkeeper will be fit to face his former club after returning to training on Tuesday.
Keegan has nursed the 39-year-old through the campaign so far, but knows he will be vital to City's chances of recording their first league double over their neighbours for 33 years.
"You don't really argue with anything Peter says," Keegan said. "He knows when he is not ready to play. He was out training for the first time in a while and, if he doesn't suffer any setbacks, he has a good chance of being fit. But we have thought we were getting him back in the past few weeks and then he has had a setbacks, so we will wait."
The Ipswich Town chairman, David Sheepshanks has paid tribute to the Suffolk club's joint assistant manager, Dale Roberts, who has died after a year-long battle against cancer.
Roberts, a popular figure at Portman Road as a player in the 1970s and then as a coach, died peacefully in his sleep at home. Sheepshanks said: "I went to visit Dale in hospital at Christmas and last Friday and it was clear he was very ill, but I was left awe-struck by the tremendous sense of inner courage he displayed."
Ipswich will have a minute's silence and players will wear black armbands as a mark of respect at the First Division game with Sheffield United at Portman Road on Saturday.
After making 18 league appearances for Ipswich, where he started his professional career in 1974, Roberts played 153 League games for Hull City. He returned to Portman Road as George Burley's assistant in 1995, having also been No 2 to the Scot at Ayr and Colchester.
The Preston defender, Colin Murdock, has pulled out of Northern Ireland's friendly against Finland on Wednesday because of a knee injury. The manager, Sammy McIlroy, has called up Cheltenham's Michael Duff to replace him. Duff was in the squad that faced Cyprus last August and Poland a year ago.
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