McGeady Spartak switch compounds Celtic misery

Celtic midfielder Aiden McGeady is poised to seal a 9.5 million pound (11.4 million euro) move to Spartak Moscow this week, dealing another early season blow to manager Neil Lennon.

Celtic, who have already been knocked out of the Champions League, lost their final pre-season game 2-1 at home to Blackburn on Sunday with McGeady left out of the starting line-up.

“He was in yesterday and more or less said his goodbyes really so we’ll see how that develops over the next one or two days. I would probably think it will be Moscow,” said Lennon.

“He’s going to go to Moscow in the next few days and get the deal finalised and that will be a relief in terms of putting the deal to bed because the sooner it’s done the better. I’ll get all the money.

“I won’t be relieved at Aiden going because I’ll be losing my best player and nobody wants to do that, but we feel it’s good money for a top player.”

McGeady has also been given permission to miss the Republic of Ireland’s friendly against Argentina on Wednesday to finalise his future.

Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni said: “We let him go and do what he must do. Maybe he will go to Russia but at the moment he is not with us.”

On Sunday, Celtic’s struggles on the field continued when goals from David Dunn and Alan Judge, sandwiching a Marc-Antoine Fortune strike, gave English Premier League side Blackburn victory.

Sunderland went down to a 3-1 defeat at German side Hoffenheim in their final pre-season friendly.

Josip Simunic scored twice inside the first 30 minutes to give Hoffenheim the advantage before Jordan Henderson pulled one back.

Ghana international Prince Tagoe added a third goal for the German side.

The English and Scottish Premier League seasons get underway next Saturday with the German Bundesliga kicking off the following weekend.