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.
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.