Celtic slap big 'price tag' on winger amid Brendan Rodgers 'talent' admission and Championship interest

Celtic have reportedly set a sizable asking price for Mikey Johnston this summer as West Brom chase a permanent deal. The winger spent the second half of last season on loan with the Baggies, scoring seven times in 18 league games.

West Brom, who ultimately lost in the play-off semi-finals, are now said to be chasing a permanent deal for Johnston, according to Football Insider, but they will have to sell a couple of players to raise funds for their summer transfers. According to the report, Celtic will ask for as much as £6million to sell the 25-year-old despite the fact he has struggled for game time at Parkhead.

That would be a big fee for a Championship club to spend on one player, but it’s not clear that Celtic want to offload the winger. Brendan Rodgers has previously said that he will consider the Irishman this pre-season. He said back in late March: "Brilliant. I’ve said before about Mikey’s talent. He has been here a long time. Listen the shirt is a different weight of shirt when you leave here. But Mikey has always shown the talent.

“He has had a number of years where he has picked up lots of injuries and he needed to get a run of games. I spoke to him in the summer when he was looking to go on loan and I said stay and get your training right because you’ve not had a period of training consistently never mind playing games. He was able to do that then he featured in some games for us and once he trained and featured it was then about getting him game time. He has gone and done fantastic and shown the talent everyone knows he has. Hopefully he continues with that and then we can look at it again in the summer.”

Former Hoops striker Jon Hartson has also weighed in on the situation recently, backing Johnston to get another opportunity. Speaking on the Go Radio Football Show, Hartson said: "This is a really interesting one. When Brendan Rodgers said that he needs to move a few on a lot of the Celtic fans would have put Mikey Johnston in that because his performances for Celtic have not been at the level that Rodgers has been looking for.

"Now you go and send him to West Brom and people are saying we should have kept him, given him chances etc. But in all fairness Celtic were not in a position to give lads opportunities, they have to go win games. So Brendan maybe needs to go with his more tried and trusted and experience. I am glad for Mikey that he is doing so well. West Brom is a big club. They are going for promotion back into the Premier League and some of the goals he has scored have been fantastic.

"But remember he is only on loan so Celtic will see more of Mikey Johnston it is just a case of the player himself when he comes back making a similar impact back at Celtic where the pressure is multiplied a lot more, and not being disrespectful to the Championship, he has to perform every single week at Celtic. There is no hiding place. So when he comes back eventually it is going to be down to him to put those type of performances he's shown at West Brom.

"Sometimes maybe a player needs to go out on loan to discover himself again and put in some good performances. He's responded exactly how Brendan Rodgers will have wanted him to. Keep going, be positive and go do well at your loan club. Your stock is then a bit higher and one or two other clubs may be interested but Celtic hold the player. He's a Celtic player. There is no doubt he will come back and there is no doubt he will have another opportunity at Celtic."