Celtic have done incredibly well in recent years to sign and develop Moussa Dembele and Edsonne Edouard, so you have to think they would look to keep that cycle going if they had a chance.
A report from HITC has claimed that they had the chance to sign Amine Gouiri from Lyon, but they were unsure on the price tag and he ended up going to Nice instead.
This is the 20 year-old’s first proper season at senior level so he should be happy with his return of seven goals and three assists in Ligue 1 so far, while he also has the ability to play wide on the left so that versatility would also be useful.
He’s demonstrated that he’s a good all-round striker so there’s every reason to believe that he could go on to be as good as Eddy or Dembele, so it does look like a mistake when you consider the deal that brought Albian Ajeti to the club.
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It’s suggested that he cost as much as £5m when he joined from West Ham, so there wasn’t a great deal of difference in the fee when it comes to the two players.
Ajeti’s time in Switzerland does go in his favour and there’s a good player in there, but Celtic have had their best success in recent years by signing players who are on an upward trajectory or those who have talent and need a chance to show it.
Gouiri absolutely fits into that category while Ajeti was a complete flop at West Ham, so he became a reclamation project as well as a developmental one as Celtic look to improve his game and take him to the next level.
In hindsight it’s easy to make transfer choices and perhaps Gouiri wouldn’t have worked out, but it does look like a mistake when you look at who went before him and the other choices that Celtic made in the transfer market.
