 Cardiff City manager Dave Jones is surprised that Joe Ledley looks set to move to Celtic and miss out on the chance of playing in the English Premiership. Jones fully expects the midfielder to sign for the Hoops, despite the player also holding talks with Stoke and having been linked with a host of other English top-flight clubs. The Wales international and his agent David Baldwin visited Celtic Park for discussions with club officials this week and the 23-year-old has been offered a deal worth a reported £25,000 per week week. Ledley has made more than 250 appearances for Cardiff after making his debut aged 17 and has accumulated 32 caps for his country. The npower Championship club would expect several million pounds of compensation should Ledley move to an English team but FIFA's transfer age limit is a year less for cross-border rules, meaning Celtic would acquire the player for free. However, Jones believes Cardiff would still be owed some money should Ledley opt for the Hoops. Jones said: "Joe's decided that he wants to go to Celtic so all the best to him and we move on. I'm disappointed that I've lost a very, very good player but if that's what he's decided to do, I wish him all the very best and I hope his career goes as well as what he wants it to go. I'm surprised, I thought he wanted Premiership football. But we had no contact from any Premiership club except Stoke. We were never made an offer from Stoke. We were never made an offer from any club for Joe. Joe's been a free since December. I'm close friends with Tony (Pulis). Tony never made him an offer. He wanted a player swap and we weren't prepared to do that. We made Joe a fantastic offer to stay. Joe decided that he wanted to ply his trade elsewhere, which he's entitled to do. There's a training compensation when you cross border and we'll be arguing that out with them now." |