Celtic fans have been left worried after seeing the club's 4-1 defeat at the hands of Sporting Lisbon. One should not read too much into pre-season results. That being said, it cannot be completely overlooked either with the Champions League qualifiers not far away.

The only positive was the fact that new arrival, Camilo Duran, scored in his very first outing for Celtic. Hopefully, it is a sign of things to come.

At the same time, it also goes to show the importance of bringing in fresh faces to the club. And there is another positive update on that.

It looks like Celtic are now closing in on their second signing of the summer transfer window. And it might be someone who was an absolute standout at the World Cup.

According to a report from Pablo Oliveira, Celtic are in negotiations to sign Haissem Hassan from Real Oviedo.

The club maintains frequent contact with the player's staff to seal the move to Glasgow. If everything goes as planned, the expectation is to close the deal as early as next week. 

That would suggest that talks over signing Hassan have advanced. And while there are other clubs interested in him as well, Celtic have to be considered frontrunners to get a deal done.

Of course, most people would have gotten to know about Hassan during the World Cup. He was a standout performer for Egypt.

At the club level, he was playing for Real Oviedo last season. Hassan registered zero goals and three assists over the course of the campaign.

Real Oviedo finished 20th in La Liga and were relegated. That means players like Hassan are likely to look elsewhere. There is believed to be a release clause in the region of €12 million (£10 million) in his current deal. The Hoops would surely want to negotiate it down to a lower figure.

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It is worth pointing though that Hassan might have only had three assists and no goals to his name last season, but the underlying stats do paint a more promising picture.

Dribbling seems to be his standout trait for sure. At the World Cup, he was in the 98th percentile for dribbles completed per 90 minutes and he was not even dispossessed on one occasion.

But let's take a bigger sample size to understand Hassan's game better. In La Liga last season, he was in the 96th percentile for total successful dribbles, in the 91st percentile for duels won, in the 90th percentile for accurate long balls, in the 89th percentile for successful crosses, in the 87th percentile for tackles and in the 85th percentile for possession won in the final third.

So, there is a ton to like about his game. He is the type of winger that Celtic have missed at times. Someone who is willing and capable of taking his man on. Let's see if they are ultimately successful in signing him.

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