With three new players joining their first team on Friday, deadline day, Celtic had a hectic closing to the summer transfer market last week.
In an effort to increase Brendan Rodgers’ options all over the field, the Hoops entered the market and signed Auston Trusty, Luke McCowan, and Arne Engels from Augsburg, Dundee, and Sheffield United, respectively, on permanent contracts. Prior to the deadline, the team had already added Adam Idah, Paulo Bernardo, Alex Valle, Kasper Schmeichel, and Viljami Sinisalo, with all but Valle joining as permanent additions. During the summer transfer window, the Scottish powerhouses demonstrated their desire by breaking the club record for Engels, who they reportedly paid £11 million for. This amount exceeded the £9 million they paid PSG for Odsonne Edouard in 2018.
Celtic and Rodgers will now hope that their investment pays off in the coming months and years, with the Belgian whiz performing on the pitch and raising his own value to potentially be sold on for a big profit in the future.
The Scottish Premiership champions invested that money after they lost central midfielder Matt O’Riley to Premier League side Brighton & Hove Albion, in a deal that cemented a masterclass by the club.
Matt O’Riley’s masterclass at Celtic Ange Postecoglou, the former manager of Celtic, pounced to recruit the Danish player from English League One team MK Dons at the beginning of 2022, reportedly for a sum of £1.5 million. Having begun his career at Fulham, the youthful midfield player had amassed ten goals and eight assists in 54 games for the lower division team.
O’Riley was the biggest attacking threat in the entire squad in the 2023/24 campaign, when it came to both scoring and creating goals.
The central midfielder ranked first in virtually every key direct attacking statistics in the Premiership, with 31 goal contributions in the top-flight to help the team to another league title.
His sublime form in Scotland attracted interest from down south and Brighton eventually secured a £25m deal to sign the Denmark international last month.
This move solidified Celtic’s mastery, as they developed a player from the third tier of English football for £1.5 million into a £25 million player for a Premier League team—a prime example of their player development strategy in action.
Although the £25 million transfer fee set a record for both Scotland and Celtic, this does not imply that the deal was the most lucrative in the team’s history because transfer fees have increased over time. If you factor in inflation, one player was sold for more than O’Riley was Pierre van Hooijdonk, a prolific center-forward that the Bhoys also performed horribly with. Celtic’s purchase price for Pierre van Hooijdonk Manager Tommy Burns reportedly paid £1.2 million for the number nine to be signed by the Scottish powerhouses from NAC Breda in January 1995.
After an outstanding run of play in his native country, where he scored 44 goals in 71 games across all competitions for NAC, Van Hooijdonk was signed by Celtic. During the first half of the 1994–1995 season, the Netherlands international scored an impressive 10 goals in 16 appearances in the Dutch first division, which persuaded the Hoops to purchase him for £1.2 million.
That came after van Hooijdonk had fired in 29 goals in 35 appearances in all competitions for NAC during the 1993/94 season, including 25 goals in 31 league matches.
The sensational forward then enjoyed a terrific spell with Celtic in Scotland, scoring 52 goals in 84 matches in all competitions, and earned a mega money move away from Parkhead.
How much Celtic sold van Hooijdonk for in today’s money
Per Totally Money, Premier League side Nottingham Forest swooped in to sign the Netherlands international from Celtic for a fee of £5.4m in 1997.
Transfer fees in football have significantly inflated over the subsequent years and, as per Totally Money’s algorithm, that £5.4m would be worth a staggering £39.4m in today’s money.
That is more than £14m more than Brighton have spent on Matt O’Riley this summer and suggests that van Hooijdonk’s move to Forest was more valuable, relative to the time the transfer was completed, than the Danish star’s switch to England was for Celtic this year.
This shows that Celtic and Burns hit gold when they dipped into the Dutch market to sign the prolific striker from NAC Breda, as they made a significant profit on the attacker, who would have been a Scottish record sale in 2024, and enjoyed his talents on the pitch.
Pierre van Hooijdonk’s Celtic Premiership record
Season 94/95 94/95 96/97
Appearances 13 34 21
Goals. 4 26 14
Stats via Sporting HeroesAs you can see in the table above, van Hooijdonk had a relatively slow start to his career at Celtic before firing in 40 goals in a season-and-a-half in the Premiership in the 1995/96 and 1996/97 campaigns.
The Dutchman then only scored seven goals in 29 Premier League matches for Forest, with a 29-goal season in the second tier sandwiched between two top-flight terms, before moving back to Holland with Vitesse.
Van Hooijdonk bounced around a few clubs, signing for Benfica, Feyenoord (twice), NAC Breda, and Fenerbahce after his spell with Vitesse, and ended his career with an impressive haul of 241 goals.
Read more news on
sportchannel.co.uk
Leave a Reply