In what will be a detrimental blow to plans at Paradise, it appears that yet another one of Celtic’s prize assets looks set to be sold this week, with fledgling 20-year-old defender Jeremie Frimpong supposedly packing his bags in an £11.5 million move to German giants Bayer Leverkusen this week, according to various outlets such as The Daily Record.
Frimpong burst onto the first team scene in place of the long-serving sturdy Mikael Lustig last season, following his £350,000 signing from Manchester City in the summer of 2019, and Jeremie has gone from strength to strength; winning the treble in his first campaign donning the Hoops’ shirt.
However, despite a lacklustre year on and off the pitch for the club, Frimpong has been one of the very few shining lights; which has been enough for Bayer Leverkusen to stump up an eight-figure-fee for the Dutchman, following their summer windfall from the £71 million sale of Kai Havertz to Chelsea.
It remains to be seen where Celtic will manage to find a replacement, given that Manchester City are due 30% of any fee – and with a reported £11.5m, this equates to just over £3m – leaving just £8m to replace the Amsterdam-born fullback.
Yet, according to Celtic stalwart Chris Sutton, this is an obscene amount of money for Frimpong – with the Englishman claiming that he is worth nowhere near that amount of money based on what he sees as this season’s sub-standard performances.
£11.5 Frimpong to Leverkusen… that’s a lot based on this season’s performances…
— Chris Sutton (@chris_sutton73) January 26, 2021
The move would signal Celtic’s reliance on developing youth in the wide areas over the last two years; Kieran Tierney’s move down south to Arsenal and Frimpong’s eventual move to North-Rhine Westphalia will have collated a total of £36m in transfer fees over the past two years; and so it would be logical for Celtic to once again find a youth player to fill the void left by the flying Dutchman.
It remains to see who will fill that void, however.
While I deplore the sale of any player, I must admit that I agree with Chris Sutton about Jeremy Frimpong. He has played many fine games (not least the League Cup final in which he was sent off by an officious referee) but he has struggled with not really knowing what his position is, and in particular he had had the potentially fatal flaw of being able to beat men, but then finding himself unable to deliver a good cross. Nevertheless, the potential is there and I wish him all the best, and if my arm was twisted, I would keep him and work on him.
DP