Celtic podcaster Lawrence Connolly has offered his thoughts on the possibility of Callum McGregor leaving the club this summer.
A report back in April seemed to suggest that former Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers would look to bring in the 28-year-old this summer, much in the same way that he looks set to raid his former side for forward Odsonne Edouard.
With funds potentially needed to fund a rebuild of the squad under new manager Ange Postecoglou, there shouldn’t really be any player that is off the table in terms of being sold this summer, and speaking on the A Celtic State Of Mind podcast, Connolly seemed to suggest that McGregor could very well be sacrificed if Celtic received the right amount of money:
“Cal Mac I’m more worried about, 27/28, he’s maybe looking and thinking this is the time to move. He is one of the players on big money, we know Brendan Rodgers is a big fan of him.
“When was the last time Cal Mac had a really good season? Not last season anyway, I would probably say not the season before it. He’s definitely kind of regressed since Rodgers has left.
“There was a couple of times last season he said in his after-match interviews, ‘We didn’t know what we were doing out there, we didn’t know what the plan was’. Maybe he’s a player that, well, certainly needed more information than Lenny was giving him, that was apparent.
“How much information and how he would respond to Postecoglou, who knows? But if Leicester really test out the waters with a £20m-£25m bid for Cal Mac, I think Celtic would jump at it.”
TIF Thoughts on Laurence Connolly’s comments about Callum McGregor…
How important is Callum McGregor to the club?
Very
Not as important as others
When you consider the rough spending patterns in the Scottish Premiership, with the most expensive transfer still standing as Tore Andre Flo’s £12m move to Rangers in 2000, it goes to show how much a fee like £20m-£25m could get you, even in today’s market when you look at more recent signings.
That sort of fee could perhaps bring in as much as four, five or maybe six players that could help Celtic this season. So if McGregor is indeed starting to decline as Connolly hints, backed up by the fact his goal return dropped from 13 goals in 2019/20 to just 4 in 2020/21, then perhaps now is the time to cash in whilst he still has some value left in him.
In other news: Key Celtic midfielder tipped for potential exit after ‘non-committal’ comments