Celtic complete Ismaila Soro signing

The Ivorian midfielder joins on a four-and-a-half year deal

Published 27th Jan 2020

Celtic have completed the signing of Ismaila Soro from Israeli club Bnei Yehuda on a four-and-a-half-year deal.

The Scottish champions announced on Monday evening that the 21-year-old Ivorian will begin training with Neil Lennon's squad on Tuesday.

He completed his medical last week with Celtic awaiting a work permit and international clearance before eventually securing his signature.

The midfielder becomes their second signing of the January window after Polish striker Patryk Klimala joined earlier in the month.

Soro began his career with FC Saxan in Moldova before joining FC Gomel in Belarus in 2017.

He then moved to Tel Aviv-based Bnei Yehuda the following year where he featured regularly for them in the Israeli top flight and Europa League qualifiers.

Speaking before his arrival, Neil Lennon said: "He's very powerful, he gets the ball back. He's got good close control. He's quite smart with the passes.

"At that age he's still got a little bit of work to do in terms of his tactical awareness but we like what we saw.

"We'll just give him the time to adapt and maybe he could play some games between now and the end of the season".