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Celtic chief Lawwell hopeful of retaining Prem targets Hooper, Wanyama

Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell believes his clubs draw with Juventus in the Champions League Round of 16 may persuade two of his stars to stay.

Gary Hooper is a target for the Italian champions, as well as Liverpool, Southampton and West Ham United whilst Victor Wanyama has attracted interest from Manchester United.

After the Hoops were pitched alongside Juve in the first knockout phase on Thursday, Lawwell felt such a two-legged fixture could go a long way to keeping the pair at Parkhead.

"From my point of view, it's got to be quite powerful. From their point of view? I couldn't comment," he told SunSport.

"We'd love to see Gary and Victor at Celtic come the first leg in February.

"At the moment we are still talking to them. These things can take time. Victor still has two-and-a-half years to go, so we're more relaxed on that than we are with Gary.

"But we are relaxed with both - we still have them for a period of time.

"We have gone to them and said 'How's about it?' We like to be ahead of the game.

"We didn't have to do it, but we went to them and hopefully we can end up in a good place."

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Andrew Slevison
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