JEREMIE Frimpong is developing his game at such a rate he is in danger of making people look bad. With Hatem Elhamed and Moritz Bauer around, few eyebrows were raised in early September when this fresh-faced 18-year-old, plucked from Manchester City and still without a first team appearance to his name, was omitted from the club’s 37-man list of eligible players for Europa League group stage matches. Not so now, just two first-team appearances later, when a repeat of that decision for the knockout rounds should Celtic get there already seems unthinkable.
After 5-0 and 6-0 wins against first Partick Thistle and now Ross County, the Amsterdam-born full back would be forgiven if he thought that picking up a bottle of man of the match champagne was as much part of his matchday routine as his pre-match meal and his warm down.
While the rest of the Parkhead squad gear up for the challenge of Lazio tomorrow night, Frimpong’s first challenge is to get further game time against Aberdeen at the weekend. On the long-term list is making himself as indispensable to Neil Lennon’s side as another Dutchman once was in the form of Virgil van Dijk.
READ MORE: Celtic's Jeremie Frimpong inspired by former Barcelona star Dani Alves
Already part of the Netherlands Under-19 squad, Frimpong hopes a stint at Celtic can prove as transformative to his career as it was for Van Dijk, who somehow was still playing his club football at Groningen at the age of 22 when Celtic came calling. A fast thinker and fast mover, Frimpong would fit right in amongst an emerging generation of Dutch superstar including Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong and Mathijs de Ligt of Juventus. While he is also eligible for Ghana and England, with no discernible Scottish link it seems unlikely that he will be the answer to our problem right back spot.
“Would I like to follow Virgil?” said Frimpong. “One hundred per cent. There’s a pathway. You get chances here.
“They [the Netherlands] play a lot of young players as well who are really good and it would be exciting to be a part of that,” he added. “Back in the day they were great and they are keeping it up.
“I’m still working on the accent but I was born in Amsterdam and moved to Manchester when I was seven. My parents are Ghanaian and Dutch and there is interest in me from Ghana but right now I want to play for Holland although I won’t write off Ghana. I could play for England as well. It would be between those three. I don’t have any Scottish connections!”
READ MORE: Jeremie Frimpong: ‘I was racially abused by Italian fans at the age of 11’
As tempting as it would have been to have stayed at Manchester City, moving on in a deal which could be worth £1m shows an admirable desire to go and develop his game with first-team football. It is the kind of move which has paid dividends for Jadon Sancho of Borussia Dortmund.
“I had been at City all my life and I had the ability to play there,” he said. “But I knew in my head that it was about him, Pep, trusting me to play. And I knew I wasn’t going to get that there. So I needed to change something. What a way to start – to win both games like that. I got man of the match in the first game as well so I don’t know how I’ll keep it up. I ‘ll just go out there and play my game.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here