Celtic have done a brilliant job over the years of developing young targets and selling them on for a big profit.
As a fan you never want to lose your best players, but there’s also some pride to be taken in seeing them advance to the next level and receiving a big fee allows the cycle to continue.
What cannot be allowed to happen is one of these major assets running their deal down and leaving for free, so it needs to be accepted that Kristoffer Ajer will be off this summer.
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His initial four year deal runs out next summer and there’s no sign of an extension happening, so the only plan just now is finding a way to get as much as they can in return.
Ideally that means big money, a replacement in exchange and a sell on clause in there as well, so Liverpool should be the perfect destination for Celtic and Ajer.
He would get a chance to former an outstanding partnership with another former Celtic star in Virgil van Dijk, while it also means that Ben Davies can finally make his way to Parkhead.
It’s hard to think of a player who’s been talked about so much without actually playing a game in a few weeks, but a lot of Liverpool fans are rating him as the 7th choice defender ahead of next season – and Ajer would push him even further down that list:
Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate, Joe Gomez, Joel Matip, Ozan Kabak, Nat Phillips and Ben Davies.
Rank the above from 1-7 in your #LFC pecking order.
— Anfield Watch (@AnfieldWatch) March 29, 2021
Davies has been linked with Celtic for months now and it was a shock when he went to Liverpool, so it makes sense to ask for him as part of the deal.
He’s left footed so that would actually help to bring a balance to the back line when he plays, while it immediately solves the problem of other clubs jacking up their prices because they know Celtic have money to spend.
Before Covid-19 hit you would think of Ajer as a £25m+ type player in the transfer market, but when you also tie in his contract situation Celtic may have to settle for something around £10-12m instead.
That’s still enough to be reinvested into two or three top quality players who would improve the team and Davies would come in as a replacement too, so this does look like the best case scenario with Ajer at this point.
