Alfa Semedo: How reported Celtic target's recent red cards should be anything but red flag for Scottish champions

There appear selling points to Celtic’s midfield target Alfa Semedo that ordinarily seems so.

The 24-year-old Guinea-Bissau international, said by Portuguese sources to be on the verge of a £2.2m loan-to-buy deal to the Scottish champions from Vitoria Guimaraes, is no shrinking violet. The athletic 6ft 2in performer proved that last season through being shown three red cards in the course of his 26 league outings – two of these straight dismissals. In addition to his other dismissal for two bookable offences in the early weeks of the campaign, he was shown a further six yellows.

A number of Celtic watchers – Chris Sutton chief among them – have suggested that what was desperately required in Ange Postecoglou transfer dealings over the summer was the recruitment of an “enforcer” to complement the ball players he possesses in abundance. Semedo would appear every inch that. And every inch the type of which Celtic were shorn with the departure of Nir Bitton following the Israeli’s nine years in Glasgow. A stint wherein he earned six reds – a figure that left him second only to Scott Brown, who collected seven, in the club’s annals for sending offs.

Among the other attractions of Semedo is that he has packed in plenty across his career – including two spells in the English Championship – since he left his homeland and entered the Benfica youth system aged 16. A time when a certain winger 16 months his junior by the name of Jota – expected to sign permanently for Celtic in a £6.4m deal with the Lisbon club – was making his way through the ranks. Semedo’s frame and drive then led to him being considered a player who could be utilised as a defensive midfielder, an auxiliary centre-back, and even a box-to-box player. As he was