Celtic head coach Brendan Rodgers may be hoping for a quieter summer when the next transfer window rolls around, as he has had to deal with plenty of player turnover in his two years back at Parkhead already.
The Hoops sold Jota to Al-Ittihad and Carl Starfelt to Celta Vigo in his first summer back at the club in 2023, whilst Aaron Mooy also decided to retire, which meant that the manager lost several key players early on.
Jota, of course, returned to Glasgow in the recent January transfer window, joining on a permanent deal from Rennes, but Rodgers did not get to work with the Portuguese star for his first 18 months at the club.
The Northern Irish boss also lost Kyogo Furuhashi in that window earlier this year, as the Japan international made the move to Ligue 1 side Rennes ahead of the second half of the season.
Rodgers was also dealt a blow when the club sold Danish attacking midfielder Matt O’Riley to Brighton & Hove Albion last summer for a club-record fee of more than £25m.
That significant fee, of course, allowed Celtic to reinvest and it must be said that the Hoops have been excellent at extracting value out of their top talents over the years.
Celtic's record player sales
The Scottish Premiership giants smashed their club-record sale by moving the Denmark international on for more than £25m, beating the figures that were brought in for Jota and Kieran Tierney in the past.
As you can see in the table below, the Portuguese forward and the Scotland international were both sold for a fee of £25m, which means that the club have raked in £25m or more from three separate players in their history.
Matt O’Riley
Brighton
£25m+
Jota
Al-Ittihad
£25m
Kieran Tierney
Arsenal
£25m
Moussa Dembele
Lyon
£19.7m
Odsonne Edouard
Crystal Palace
£18.5m
The Scottish side have also sold two strikers – in Odsonne Edouard and Moussa Dembele – for more than £18m in recent years, which adds further evidence to suggest that Celtic are excellent at cashing in on their top talents, as much as the managers may not want to lose them.
Celtic know how to bring in talented young players and help them to thrive in their first-team, which puts them in the shop window for teams in Europe’s major leagues – who then swoop in to pay millions for them.
However, the Hoops do not always get it right, as no one is perfect, and there have been cases where a player has been sold on for a small fee, only for their value to skyrocket after their exit from Parkhead.
Where Are They Now
Scottish central midfielder Ryan Christie is one excellent example of this, as the left-footed star has thrived since his move away from Glasgow.
How much Celtic sold Ryan Christie for
The midfield dynamo was signed from Inverness in the summer of 2015 and spent his first two years away on loan, at Inverness for six months and Aberdeen for 18 months, to gain vital first-team experience.
Christie eventually became a first-team player for Celtic at the start of the 2018/19 campaign, under Rodgers, and produced an eye-catching 11 goals and nine assists in 38 appearances in all competitions.
The Scotland international followed that up with a staggering return of 21 goals and 16 assists in 45 outings in all competitions in the following season, as he provided a constant threat as both a scorer and a creator of goals for his side.
Christie’s last season with the Scottish giants yielded seven goals and 15 assists in 46 matches for the Hoops in the 2020/21 campaign, before his move to Bournemouth in the summer of 2021.
Celtic failed to tie him down to a new contract, with his deal running out in 2022, and sold him to the Cherries for a reported fee of just £2.5m, which has turned out to be a bargain for the English club.
Ryan Christie is now similar to a £100m Premier League star
Almost four years later, Christie has made 147 appearances for Bournemouth, who are now in the Premier League, and is similar to Newcastle United superstar Bruno Guimaraes.
The experienced ace has started 25 times in the division this term and caught the eye with 3.0 tackles and interceptions per game, along with five ‘big chances’ created for his teammates.
Per FBref, Christie and Guimaraes have been statistically similar in the Premier League over the last 365 days – both playing in central midfield in the English top-flight.
As you can see in the chart above, both players like to create chances for their teammates, whilst they are also excellent when it comes to progressing play through passes, take-ons, and carries. This illustrates how well the Scottish ace has performed, particularly when you consider that Guimaraes had a £100m release clause in his Newcastle contract last summer.
It shows that the former Celtic star has performed well at Premier League level for Andoni Iraola’s side this season, because his statistics have led to comparisons to the £100m-rated Brazil international, and – as shown in the chart – he ranks highly among his peers in a host of metrics.
Christie, who was described as an “incredible lad” by former boss Gary O’Neil, may not be worth £100m to Bournemouth, but his value has soared way beyond the £2.5m that Celtic brought in for his services back in 2021.
August 2021
£2.5m reported fee
November 2021
£7.5m
June 2023
£8.4m
December 2023
£10m
December 2024-present
£10m
As you can see in the table above, the 30-year-old maestro is now worth a whopping £10m, per Transfermarkt, and that is significantly more than the fee the Cherries paid for him almost four years ago.
Therefore, Celtic may regret only bringing in £2.5m for the mercurial playmaker when they opted to sell him in 2021, or they may rue that they were unable to agree a new contract to keep him at Parkhead ahead of the 2021/22 campaign, as he has gone on to become a fantastic player down south.
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The Hoops will, therefore, hope to continue their trend of selling their key players for significant fees, rather than smaller sums like £2.5m, if they end up moving any of their stars on in the upcoming summer window.