Celtic Pursue Radek Vitek for Goalkeeping Role

Celtic’s goalkeeping search has taken a sharp, encouraging turn – and this time the noise is coming from the player they want.

Radek Vitek, the Manchester United goalkeeper on the Scottish champions’ radar, has gone public. He is ready to leave Old Trafford. Not for another season on the fringes. For a starting jersey somewhere else.

“I’m ready to go somewhere again and hopefully be number one,” he told BBC Sport, making it abundantly clear that his future lies away from United, whether on loan or permanently. For Celtic, that’s the opening they have been waiting for.

Celtic’s keeper dilemma

Martin O’Neill has not disguised the situation. Celtic are short in goal.

“We need another goalkeeper,” he said last week. “We’ve only got the two young lads, we’ve got Ross [Doohan] and we’ve got [Viljami] Sinisalo, so we definitely need another goalkeeper. You need competition for places as well.”

Sinisalo, he stressed, did well “under really trying circumstances” when he stepped in for “the big fellow” last season. But that was then. A title defence and European nights demand more than cover and good intentions.

“That was last season… new season,” O’Neill pointed out, drawing a firm line under what has gone before.

This is not a manager shopping for a quiet back-up. He wants a presence.

Asked about targeting a goalkeeper in the mould of Kasper Schmeichel or Joe Hart, O’Neill didn’t flinch.

“That’s definitely a thought. I don’t want an older goalkeeper who thinks, ‘Well, I’m just going to be number two.’ I want somebody to be threatening. It has to be. Even if it wasn’t an older goalkeeper, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be thinking of somebody younger.”

Younger. Ambitious. Ready to push – or take – the number one spot.

On paper, Radek Vitek fits that profile almost perfectly.

Vitek’s breaking point at United

Vitek joined Manchester United in 2020 and is contracted until 2028, but the length of that deal masks a simple truth: he has never played a senior game for the club.

He has been sent out to learn his trade – Accrington Stanley, FC Blau-Weiss Linz, and most recently Bristol City. The last of those spells changed the tone of his career.

At Bristol City in the 2025/26 season, Vitek didn’t just play. He dominated. He walked away with a clean sweep of awards: Player of the Year, Players’ Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year. For a 22-year-old goalkeeper in a demanding league, that is not a footnote. It is a statement.

The next step was supposed to be straightforward. According to BBC Sport, the plan was for Vitek to secure his next move before Manchester United’s pre-season began. Instead, he was still there at the weekend, part of the United side beaten 1-0 by Wrexham in Helsinki.

So he has said it out loud. Enough.

On whether he prefers a loan or a permanent move, his answer was blunt and flexible at the same time.

“I’m ready for both, to be fair. It depends on what the club wants and also on the options. There has been a few interests on the table. We’re hoping to choose the best one and hopefully it will happen soon.”

The ambition hasn’t shifted. Back in March, he told BBC Sport his main aim for next season was to play regularly. Months on, nothing has softened.

“My mind is the same. I want to play every week and that’s the goal for next season.”

For a club like Celtic, that hunger is exactly what O’Neill has been demanding.

Interest turns into opportunity

The link between Celtic and Vitek is not new. Football Insider journalist Pete O’Rourke reported on July 11 that Celtic are interested in the United keeper “after he impressed on loan at Bristol City last season.” That interest sat there, logical but speculative.

Now the dynamic has changed. Vitek has made it clear, in public, that he is ready to go and expects a decision soon. The door is open. The question is whether Celtic walk through it.

The profile fits: a young goalkeeper with high-level potential, hardened by a standout Championship campaign, desperate to be a number one rather than a training-ground extra. He would arrive not as a veteran stop-gap, but as the kind of “threatening” presence O’Neill has demanded to shake up his goalkeeping department.

Celtic still have choices to make. United do too. Loan or permanent. Development project or long-term anchor. But the shape of the conversation has shifted.

Vitek no longer sounds like a prospect waiting patiently in the background. He sounds like a goalkeeper ready to stake his claim – and Celtic, more than most, know what it means when a restless talent decides it is time to move.