The Celtic fans are expecting big things from the club in this summer’s transfer window.
Not least because of the vast sums of money sitting in the bank account but also because, from day one, Brendan Rodgers has always said he wants to improve Celtic’s standing on the European stage.
But to do that costs money and Celtic have been urged all season to splash the cash to help them at least compete with teams in the Champions League.
But spending vast sums of money, whilst improving your chances in Europe, doesn’t always guarantee that a player will be a success. Just look at Vasilis Barkas and Albian Ajeti.
According to former Celtic boss, Neil Lennon, all the club needs to do is to look in the right places as he shares how he discovered a player for £300k who is now ‘one of the best in Europe’ whilst he was the Parkhead boss.
Jeremie Frimpong’s Celtic discovery
Jeremie Frimpong is now one of the hottest properties on the European scene at the minute. But the 23-year-old’s rise to stardom is down to Lennon and here, the former Celtic boss shares how he discovered the Dutch international defender.
Lennon said [Scottish Football Podcast], “It’s not always about £10m to £12m players. It’s about whether you can find the nuggets that are out there, bring them in, develop them and then get them playing at that stage.
“They are out there. There’s no question. We found [Jeremie] Frimpong, I found him at a training game at Man City against Celtic.
“I looked at him and said, ‘Wow, this kid looks alright.’
“And then we went and did a bit of work on him and the clubs did business and we ended up getting him for three hundred grand.
“You just never know how good they really gonna be. But Jeremie just took off and the progress was impossible.
“And now you are talking, I don’t know what his release clause in his contract is, £40m-£50m or something like that.
“But he’s one of the best in Europe at the minute so they’re there if you can find them.”
There is no doubt there is young undiscovered talent out there that doesn’t cost millions of pounds. Celtic have been great at doing that for over two decades now.
The problem the club have is that for every success story, there have been other failures and we have witnessed that first-hand this season.
Last year’s summer recruitment was badly exposed as failure in the Champions League once again showed that the players who were brought in were simply not good enough to compete at that level.
And whilst the club does need to continue that model, there needs to be a balance of bringing in youth and experience.
That’s what the fans want to see now. And that is what, hopefully, Rodgers will do this summer to help better prepare Celtic for going up against Europe’s elite for the third season in a row.