A major update has emerged about Sunderland forward Charlie Wyke, regarding Celtic's hopes of landing the Englishman.

What's the talk?

According to the Northern Echo, Sunderland are on the verge of losing top scorer Charlie Wyke to Scottish Premiership side Celtic. Wyke is out of contract at the end of the month and Celtic are confident that the attacker will reject Sunderland's attempts to keep him in order to seal a move to Scotland.

The report claims that Celtic are preparing their contract offer for Wyke and will submit it to his agent this week. Celtic are increasingly confident that Wyke will put pen to paper on a deal with them instead of staying at the Stadium of Light.

Earlier this year, Lee Cattermole hailed the “on fire” forward, claiming that Sunderland need a striker of Wyke's calibre to get out of League One. He told Sky Sports, as relayed by Sunderland Echo:

“If you want to try and get out the division, you need your number nine doing what Charlie is doing for the club.

"Suddenly you're going out into the game thinking you've got a chance.

"If you keep a clean sheet you know you've got a guy on fire. It breeds confidence throughout the whole squad as well. Hopefully other people start chipping in as well.”

Fans will be livid

Sunderland fans will be livid as Kristjaan Speakman is heading for a disaster with Wyke. Speakman has been in talks with Wyke since the end of the season over a new contract and Sunderland offered him fresh terms last week, according to the Northern Echo.

However, it appears as though Speakman has not done enough to entice Wyke to commit his future to the club, with Celtic now set to pounce and snatch the goal machine away from Wearside.

As Cattermole said earlier this year, having a number nine who scores a bucketload of goals is crucial to getting out of League One. Hull had two players score 18 league goals - Mallik Wilks and Josh Magennis - and Peterborough had the league's top scorer in Jonson Clark-Harris, who found the back of the net 31 times. Wyke was the second-top scorer in the division with 26 goals, but Lee Johnson's side did not have the pieces around the centre-forward to see out their promotion chances.

The £6.4k-per-week ace could, therefore, be a major loss for Sunderland. Grant Leadbitter, with seven, was Sunderland's next highest scorer and the midfielder is also set to leave the club at the end of the month.

This places further emphasis on the impact Wyke's exit could have as Sunderland do not have any other players who appear as though they could immedately replace the goals the club are poised to lose. Therefore, the fans will be fuming if Speakman is now unable to pin him down to a new deal.

AND in other news, Stance revealed on £3k-p/w Sunderland target with “real talent”, Speakman must act now...