Celtic put on Carney Chukwuemeka transfer alert as Chelsea open the door and Champions League foes make change

Carney Chukwuemeka is set to leave Chelsea on loan in January with the Stamford Bridge club open to offers.

And that could put Celtic on red alert with the Premiership champions linked with a temporary move for the former Aston Villa starlet. Along with summer signing from Leicester Kieran Dewsbury-Hall, the London club are prepared to listen to offers for the duo, who are finding game time hard to come by under Enzo Maresca, despite the Itlian's regular rotation policy.

Brendan Rodgers is on the lookout for reinforcements out wide. Nicolas Kuhn and Daizen Maeda are first picks on the flanks, but with James Forrest's advancing years and Luis Palma seemingly on the way out of Parkhead and Yang failing to stake a regular claim, a fresh face in that area woud be a welcome addition. The Hoops are firmly in control of the title race, but will have further Champions League games to negotiate while their Scottish Cup defence kicks off next month.

Chukwuemeka almost departed Chelsea last summer and a January exit is almost certain after Maresca admitted that it would have been better for the 21-year-old to move on back then. He said: "I will say exactly the same thing I have said many times, Carney is a very good player, but for the amount of players we have, we decided at the beginning of the season it is probably better to leave and go somewhere, prove himself and playing 30 or 35 games than being here and play less games.

"Unfortunately that didn't happen. He is our player. He had some minutes the other day, today he was not involved. Hopefully, we can give him more minutes."

Wages could prove a stumbling block and Chelsea will likely need to stump up a good chunk of his pay packet to make a loan deal happen, regardless of