Coventry City boss Aidy Boothroyd has poured yet more scorn on the derisory offer made by Celtic for City's Keiren Westwood.
Yesterday Boothroyd revealed that he was aware of a previous offer from Neil Lennon of Celtic for the 25 year old Irish international goal keeper, but dismissed it out of hand saying, “We had an offer come in via somebody else three weeks ago but it was derisory, derogatory and any other D-word you can think of. I think it was £3.50 and a bag of haggis, certainly nowhere near enough for a player of that quality."
“Keiren knows all about it and he knows I don’t want to lose a player that I think is the best goalkeeper in the division. I want him here, Ray Ranson wants him here and I would imagine every single Coventry supporter, player and member of staff wants him here."
“Keiren is out of contract in a year’s time so we’ll just have to wait to see what happens, but this is the place for him to further his career so until we get a bid that matches our evaluation of him he is very much our player and even if we do get a bid we’ll have a decision to make.
Boothroyd, who has worked with both Ben Foster, when the 'keeper was on loan at Watford during Boothroyd's tenure in the Hornets hot seat and Keiren Westwood and he thinks the Westwood is the better goal keeper.
Foster cost Birmingham City £6m in the summer, but Celtic, it is claimed, offered just £500,000 for Westwood, who has one year left to run on his Coventry contract.
He said, “I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Ben Foster and I think Westie is better than him. Don’t get me wrong, Ben is brilliant, a terrific keeper, but I think Westie is even better.”
“Having a good goalkeeper is a pre-requisite for success in any team and the last thing I want to do is lose one. I want to build a team around him.”
Westwood was on international duty on Wednesday in Dublin when Ireland lost 1-0 to Argentina.
Shay Given was given the nod over Westwood after recovering from a dislocated shoulder sustained at the end of last season.
Westwood was replaced by Colin Doyle on an emergency loan from Birmingham, but in an ironic twist, had to return to his parent club because of an injury to Birmingham's number one ' keeper Ben Foster.
Boothroyd said, “It’s a shame he had to go back because of Ben’s injury but I’ll wait to see what happens because I would certainly be interested in taking him. I like him, I think he’s a good goalkeeper, which is why I brought him in.”
Boothroyd is still desperate to find another goal keeper and has looked a a few during the summer, one of whom was the Australian teenager Lawrence Thomas. Boothroyd also had a good look at the French winger Francis Laurent.
“I know where I am with both players,” said Boothroyd, “I want to bring them in but there are other fish to fry and I’ve just got to balance it out with they guys who are here at the moment. I don’t want to bring in players that would push us over the edge. I want to stick with the budget that we set out."
“That’s why I’m being a bit cagey. I’ve got people ringing me up all the time about players and that’s with two and a half weeks to go to the transfer deadline, give it a few more days it will be madness. I’ll have to change my number."
“There are a couple I’m keen on and we’ve had interest in a couple of ours. At the moment I’m reluctant to let anybody go but at some point I might have to in order to balance the books and perhaps get more players in loan wise."
"It might have to happen in January but at the moment we’re OK, we’re set where we are.”