WHEN Celtic famously fielded a side assembled from within a 30-mile radius of Parkhead in the final of the European Cup in 1967 and defeated the two-in-a-row European champions Inter Milan, I wonder if supporters of the Glasgow club were already haranguing the board to break open the chequebook and secure the continent’s best talent.
Every summer since civilisation began, like Christmas lists descending on Santa Claus’s porch in December, supporters of the Parkhead side dream up bigger and bigger targets, insisting they would be privileged to wear the green and white hoops in front of 60,000 every other week. In a purely footballing sense, of course, they are right. But here in 2023, a cinch Premiership side, regardless of how far ahead of the rest of their class they are, could barely afford Erling Haaland’s room and board for a week's all-inclusive let alone offer the Manchester City striker a competitive contract.
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This summer, if it’s not Scott McTominay from Manchester United, it’s his team-mate Donny van de Beek. The Dutchman moved from Champions League semi-finalists Ajax to Old Trafford for a deal worth up to £39m two and a half years ago. Maybe the highly rated midfielder failed that infamous litmus test of handling a cold night in Stoke having failed to estabish himself in the team even since former Ajax boss Erik ten Hag's arrival; he’s not exactly going to be frothing at the mouth for dismal drenchings in Dingwall or third-degree rug-burns at Rugby Park on a fraction of his current salary though, is he?
A third name bouncing around the echo chamber is former fans’ favourite Kieran Tierney. The Scotland internationalist joined Arsenal from Celtic for £25m in 2019 and has since agreed a bumper five-year contract extension in 2021 worth over £5m a year. While his connection to his boyhood club is undoubtable, at 26 Tierney is entering the peak years of his career and would walk into most teams in the Premier League.
If anything, the recent proclamation of “significantly higher than previously expected” financial figures from Celtic's justifiably back-patting board ahead of filing year-ending figures to the stock exchange only served to increase expectations to this frenzied level. But it’s worth considering how these figures were achieved: the sale of Jota – a £6m signing from Sporting Lisbon following a successful audition on loan – for a similar price tag to Tierney accounting for the bulk of those profit margins. Who’d heard of him before he arrived at Parkhead? Josip Juranovic was also sold during that period for the best part of £10m having joined from Legia Warsaw a couple of years prior for a quarter of that sum. These players contributed significantly to the club’s successes under Ange Postecoglou, with Celtic’s domestic dominance securing Champions League football and the riches that follow augmenting this player-trading bonanza.
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This is the club’s transfer policy when it’s firing on all cylinders, and their rude financial health is proof positive it works. Tierney was perhaps the prime example: a development player who contributed a great deal on the park during Rodgers' all-conquering first spell with the club was sold for a club-record fee. It’s a deal that makes Peter Lawwell look like Matt Damon in The Rainmaker. The idea that Celtic should part with the cash required to bring him back to Parkhead this summer makes no sense within that model whatsoever.
The reality is that Celtic’s marquee transfers for the last decade and more have been transfers out of the club. It’s a well-rehearsed routine by now, but the likes of Victor Wanyama, signed from Germinal Beerschot for £1m, sold to Southampton for £12.5m; Virgil van Dijk, signed from Groningen for £2.5m, sold to Southampton for £13m; and Moussa Dembele, signed from Fulham for £500,000 in compensation, sold to Lyon for £19.7m, all represent great business for the club. The list goes on and on and leads all the way to the latest marquee sale, Jota.
That model, whose pistons appear at present to be doused in litres of WD-40, is unlikely to shift any time soon. That’s not to say the board won’t back Brendan Rodgers in the transfer market; indeed, guarantees were made in this regard when the brief courting period between the club and its former manager ensued following Ange Postecoglou’s departure. But it won’t be McTominay, Van de Beek or Tierney arriving at Celtic Park this summer.
When Odsonne Edouard first arrived at the club during Rodgers’ first spell in charge – like Jota, on an initial loan from Paris Saint-Germain – the Frenchman convinced the Northern Irishman to go out of his way to convince the board to pull out all the stops and him on a permanent deal. A club-record £9m fee was sanctioned and Edouard proved to be a hit at Parkhead.
But this wasn’t some errant splashing of the cash to appease Rodgers; Edouard was a higher-stakes gamble in the Celtic transfer machine at such a high outlay. While his eventual sale to Crystal Palace for a fee which could rise to around double what Celtic paid for him was perhaps under-value for a striker of the France Under-21 internationalist’s quality, it still represented a considerable profit for the Parkhead club. And this is what promises over funds for transfer targets will have been all about. Pushing the boat out, yes; but Premier League stars in the prime of their careers, no.
So, who will the big-name transfer at Celtic be this summer? Well, that’s easy: Jota. You can expect the next big name out of Parkhead to be signed during this window. It’s just that you probably haven’t heard of them yet.
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