Celtic have parted ways with one of the best attacking midfielders in European football, as Matt O’Riley has made a blockbuster move to the English Premier League, becoming the latest great talent to join the Brighton project.
Now, Celtic are busy considering economical additions to their squad for the future, developing players who can become potentially as brilliant as O’Riley in the future.
Their big transfer focus right now is 20-year-old Belgian midfielder Arne Engels. The Augsburg standout started 18 games in the 2022/23 season and 13 games in the 2023/24 campaign, showing signs of future stardom even in a technically reduced role last season.
Per a report from Ronan Murphy of FootballTransfers.com, Celtic submitted an opening 6.5 million pound transfer bid to Augsburg for one of the Bundesliga’s top U21 midfield prospects, but they unsurprisingly had that initial offer rejected.
That 6.5 million pound bid is reportedly far away from the valuation Celtic have in mind for the 20-year-old, so while Celtic already have personal terms secured for the talented Arne Egels, they will need to submit a substantially more competitive offer for the Augsburg player.
So long as they do that, though, this is a very achievable transfer for Celtic. No other club is really pushing hard for Engels, whereas Brendan Rodgers and Co. have seemingly made him a priority.
In the 2022/23 season, Engels averaged 1.3 key passes per game in the Bundesliga with nearly 2 combined tackles and interceptions per game. The Belgian center midfielder also had three assists that season.
Last season, Engels had three goals and two assists in roughly the same number of minutes, 1,440. He also averaged 3.1 combined tackles and interceptions per 90 with 1.2 key passes per 90.
An all-around presence in midfield, Engels is the kind of dice-roll worth Celtic taking, as he could be worth triple the, let’s say, roughly 10 million pounds they may have to pay in order to coax Augsburg into giving the green light to a summer 2024 transfer.
