By CCFCSleepingGiant.com
July 29 2004

Robert Earnshaw will not be signing for Celtic, despite months of speculation. After countless rumours we are still yet to receive a bid for Earnie and it is looking increasingly likely that he will be playing for the Bluebirds on August 7. SKY ran a story over the weekend which suggested that Celtic were increasing their interest in Earnshaw. It included direct quotes from the Welsh International himself.

He said: “I played in Scotland before with Morton and enjoyed it. And I know how big a club Celtic is and how, for that matter, they are always successful and are competing in Europe.

"If a club agrees a fee with Cardiff, I would look at it because I want to play at the highest level.

"I'm doing that with Wales at international level and I want to do it at club level, too.

"But I have three years left on my Cardiff contract and until they tell me differently, I am their player."

So that got the rumour mill working at full speed, but things soon returned to normal as Celtic began looking elsewhere. The Scottish Champions didn’t send a representative to the Hibernian game – they had their eyes elsewhere with Alan Shearer, Hakan Yakin and Kanu all heavily linked in just a few days.

But in the end Celtic’s Matin O’Neill opted for an expensive loan signing with a swoop for out-of-favour Wolves frontman Henri Camara. The loan, which is worth £1.5m, will beat the previous British record for a loan signing set by Mikael Forssell's move from Chelsea to Birmingham.

That will almost certainly extinguish Celtic’s interest in Earnshaw, at least for the time being. The only other club who may move for Earnshaw now is West Brom, but they are more likely to move for Arsenal’s Kanu and Jonathan Greening from Middlesbrough. Once those deals are finalised, we can all rest a little easier knowing that Earnshaw is still a City player.

Meanwhile, it is thought that Crewe are still chasing City number-24 Gareth Whalley. The midfielder appears to be an unwanted man at Ninian Park after the bonus disagreement. It is thought that the club are unhappy about how Whalley handled the situation which sparked a lot of debate amongst supporters.