Pundit Kevin Graham has recently made a claim about Celtic potentially losing some of their players this summer.
Graham was a guest on the latest episode of the ‘A Celtic State of Mind’ podcast and the panel discussed multiple issues involving the Bhoys. They also discussed potential Celtic transfers and this led to Graham talking about why Celtic might end up losing players that they wouldn’t want to sell this summer because of the situation of the market.
Odsonne Edouard has been linked with moves to Arsenal and Aston Villa this summer. Kristoffer Ajer has been linked with a move to Milan and Leicester City. Midfielder Olivier Ntcham has also drawn links with a move to the Premier League.
Graham believes that this is a ‘strange transfer market’ and as a result, clubs could be losing players that they want to keep.
He said: “It is a strange transfer market, and you look at Liverpool last week, they sold one of their highest-rated youngsters [Ki-Jana Hoever] to Wolves as part of the deal to bring in [Diogo] Jota for them, and a lot of Liverpool fans – they were moaning that this young prospect had left, but the way that the market is, you could be losing some players that you want to keep because of the finances of every club.
Will Celtic lose one of Ajer, Ntcham and Edouard this summer?
Yes
No
“There’s guys on the fringes of your team where before you’d be looking to get money for them; clubs are not going to be interested in them anymore at the value that you had on them. So it could be that we are going to need to lose a player that you’d rather keep.”
TIF Thoughts…
The pandemic has impacted the transfer market and has impacted how clubs deal in the window. Despite that, the Hoops have signed three players on a permanent basis this summer. Albian Ajeti has arrived for a fee of £4.95m, Vasilis Barkas has joined for £4.5m and David Turnbull has joined the club from Motherwell for a fee that could be worth £3.25 million.
So they have spent a fair bit in the transfer window already and they might want some funds to make up for what they’ve spent. So it remains to be seen which player departs.