Neil Lennon revealed that Jeremie Frimpong was meeting an unnamed foreign club to undergo talks and a medical, to complete a move away from Celtic Park yesterday. It was later revealed that the club in question was Bayer Leverkusen and reports on the fee differ from £10m to £11.5m, whilst Manchester City are said to have a 20% sell on fee.
Celtic paid £300,000 for Frimpong, who was a development player, so from a financial perspective one could say that the transfer was good business. It could turn out to be the case but I have two concerns.
Firstly, it is alarming how quickly we lose our talented players. Frimpong only joined us in September 2019 as a youth team player. In a short space of time he developed into a first team player, and was really impressive last season. Although, he was rotated with Elhamed who was preferred when fit. This season he has played a more prominent role but hasn’t performed as well as last term.
We can see that he has good attributes, most notably his electrifying pace and energy which can turn defence into attack. That pace is also useful defensively as he rarely gets beaten on the outside. However, there have been complaints about his final ball and his defensive positioning. Playing in the wing back role, this was highlighted.
It’s important to remember that Frimpong is only 20 years old. With decent coaching and experience, his positioning and game understanding will improve and his final ball is a very simple thing to work on. His best years are ahead of him and I wouldn’t be surprised if Leverkusen propel him to the next level. In that sense, it’s worrying that we’ve only really had a development player in action for one year, who has yet to reach his potential with us, but already we have lost him. It’d be nice to think that we could enjoy two seasons out of a top player before they move on, and with the likes of Frimpong it’d be good to see him reach his best before he departs.
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My other concern is whether the transfer fee is good business or not. On paper it looks good, but it depends how that money is used. If we spread that fee among £1-2m players then it’s unlikely that we will reap the rewards. It’s only a rare case such as Frimpong that this type of minimal investment pays off. Indeed, for every Frimpong there’s a Scepovic or Bangura.
Often the full funds won’t be invested either, meaning half the money goes into the bank and the other half is split among cheap prospects. Instead, I’d like to see us speculate with that money to sign a top player, in the same way that we did with Odsonne Edouard. Financially, this more often than not makes sense as the player’s sell on value is huge if they do well, and if not then the fee we paid out can usually be recouped because they have already proven themselves to attract that price in the first place.
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In the case of Edouard, we could have sold him for circa £30m, representing a £21m profit, but still can get approximately £25m for him at this stage. That speculation has certainly accumulated, whilst in the meantime players of that quality bring in additional funds through prize money, merchandise and ticket sales that go with success and ideally Champions League qualification.
From the football side of things, it means that Celtic are improving and can build a team to make in-roads in Europe. That makes the loss of players more palatable as we can scale up and use profits to improve. Without that ambitious approach then I’m not sure that having the money from Frimpong’s sale puts us in a better position.
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The money from this sale will go keeping the club on a sounder financial footing as the European debacle and no crowds scenario has put a strain on finances at the club and I’d be really surprised if they sign another player for a large fee as the season is over to all intents and purposes.