Football News: Cardiff City look to 'Stokes' up their promotion push.

Image from: www.talkceltic.net

Cardiff City have turned their attention to Celtic's Anthony Stokes as they search for players to help fire them back into the promotion race with several sources reporting the Republic of Ireland frontman, would cost the Welsh club around £1.5.

Stokes, 26, joined Celtic in 2010 from Hibernian and has scored 75 goals for the Glasgow club with his most recent being the only goal of the game in the 1-0 win against Motherwell on Saturday.

To the surprise of many supporters, Stokes has been a regular under new Celtic boss Ronny Deila so it would take a good offer to prise Stokes, whose contracted to the Glasgow giants until 2016, away from Celtic Park. The fact Stokes is a dyed-in-the-wool Celtic supporter will also be a problem for Cardiff City if their interest is for real, Stokes is playing every week for his boyhood heroes and has often spoken of his love for the club and pride in playing for it.

Any move could hinge on whether Ronny Deila sees Stokes as a long term option or if he is only playing because there is nobody else showing any consistency on the left hand side of the attacking 3 in Deila's favoured 4-2-3-1 system.

Only today Stokes spoke of the part he has to play in Ronny Deila's set-up,

"I'm happy to play there. My goal return is decent for the role and I've been creating goals as well, so I've been happy with my form.

"My preferred position is to play up front but we need to adapt to how the gaffer wants to play and I have no issue with that whatsoever.

"I'm just happy to be in the side, starting nine times out of ten and helping the team. I enjoy every game. You always want to be playing and in the starting XI."

Perhaps the Cardiff link is some mischief making by the media who have pages to fill as the silly season of the January transfer window creeps up on us.

Written by Mark B Jamieson December 09 2014 15:47:29