Toulouse have “ended their pursuit” of Celtic centre-back Stephen Welsh, according to Sky Sports journalist Anthony Joseph.

The French club had made the 22-year-old their top target to strengthen in the centre of defence, but they had a loan offer (with a £3.5m option to buy) rejected last week, and Joseph claims they have now moved on to other options:

UPDATE: Toulouse have ended their pursuit of Celtic defender Stephen Welsh in this window.

He was their No1 centre-back target this summer.

However, Celtic rejected a season-long loan bid, with an option-to-buy for £3.5m, last week.

Toulouse will now move on to other targets. https://t.co/juxtIaDCSm

— Anthony Joseph (@AnthonyRJoseph) August 1, 2022

Welsh starred in the 2-0 win against Aberdeen on Sunday, scoring the first goal just three minutes into the match. He started in place of Carl Starfelt, who was been recovering from a hamstring injury, but it shows he is still ranked very highly by manager Ange Postecoglou.

New signing Moritz Jenz was left on the bench at the weekend, but the German is likely to be given more game time in the coming weeks, while Starfelt is also expected to be back in contention for the next game against Ross County on Saturday.

It means Welsh needed to put in a strong performance in order to put himself in contention for games going forward, and he certainly did that against Aberdeen.