Celtic star sold by Lennon is now worth 259% more

Celtic opted to cash in on one of their star players in the recent January transfer window when Rennes swooped in to sign Kyogo Furuhashi from the Scottish giants.

After a return of 85 goals in 165 appearances in all competitions for the Scottish Premiership champions, the Japan international completed a £10m move to the Ligue 1 side ahead of the second half of the season.

The Japanese marksman, who scored a stunning 34 goals in the 2022/23 campaign for Ange Postecoglou, became the second big name to move on from the club this term.

Danish midfielder Matt O’Riley completed a move worth more than £25m to Brighton & Hove Albion last summer, after a return of 18 goals and 13 assists in the Premiership last season.

Celtic have a rich history of developing and selling players on, as was the case with both Kyogo and O’Riley, and there may be more examples to come out of the current squad if they continue to improve and attract attention from elsewhere.

Celtic’s biggest sales

O’Riley became the most expensive player in the history of Scottish football when Brighton paid a fee of more than £25m to sign the English-born attacking midfielder last summer.

That beat the previous record that was jointly held by Jota’s £25m move to Al-Ittihad in the summer of 2023 and Kieran Tierney’s £25m switch to Arsenal ahead of the 2019/20 campaign.

O’Riley’s fantastic performances on the pitch for Celtic during his time in Glasgow earned him a move to the Premier League, and he has scored one goal in 12 matches for Brighton in the English top-flight so far.

At this moment in time, with that solitary goal return in the Premier League, it looks as though the Hoops hit the jackpot by raking in a record fee for him.

As you can see in the table above, Odsonne Edouard and Moussa Dembele join the aforementioned trio in the top five biggest sales in the club’s history.

Kyogo, with his £10m move to Rennes, does not even come close to cracking the top five, which speaks volumes of how well the Hoops have done as a selling club over the years.

One of those expensive sales returned to the club in January transfer window, when Jota signed on a permanent deal from Rennes – who had signed him from Al-Ittihad last summer.

He is set to be joined by another member of the list at the end of this season, though, as Kieran Tierney is due to join on a free transfer from Premier League giants Arsenal.

Celtic’s Kieran Tierney masterclass

The Hoops brought the Scotland international up through their academy system and he was their first-choice left-back for five Scottish Premiership title-winning campaigns.

The left-footed star, as you can see in the graphic above, racked up the best part of 200 first-team appearances for the club after emerging from the youth sides, before being sold for a staggering fee of £25m.

Six years later, Celtic are now set to sign him for £0 in the summer when his contract with Arsenal expires, as they have already agreed a pre-contract deal with the full-back.

One of the reasons why the Hoops have been able to secure this masterclass, however, is because the defender has missed a whopping 39 matches through injury since the start of last season.

Tierney managed zero goals and two assists in 20 LaLiga games on loan at Real Sociedad last term, and has not been involved in any goals in his four outings in the Premier League for Arsenal in the current campaign.

This suggests that Celtic played a blinder by landing £25m for him in 2019, as he has struggled since moving on from Parkhead, and they now have the chance to see if he can reignite his career in Glasgow next season as a free transfer arrival.

Meanwhile, the Scottish giants once sold another full-back for less than half as much as they got for Tierney, yet he is now even better than the Scotland international and worth considerably more.

How much Celtic sold Jeremie Frimpong for

Right-back Jeremie Frimpong, who had been signed from Manchester City for just £350kwas sold to German side Bayer Leverkusen at the start of 2021 for a reported fee of up to £11.5m.

Neil Lennon, the manager at the time, said that it was “very difficult” to convince the Dutchman to turn down the chance to join a big European outfit, and that the club attempted to offer him a new contract to stay at Parkhead, to no avail.

Ultimately, Celtic and Lennon decided to cash in on Frimpong midway through the 2020/21 campaign and raked in a fairly significant fee of £11.5m, even if it was considerably less than what they got for Tierney 18 months prior.

Since making the move to Germany, the Netherlands international has soared in value and is currently worth £41.3m – per Transfermarkt – which is a rise of 259% from the £11.5m that Celtic received for his services in 2021.

As you can see in the table above, Frimpong’s value has skyrocketed throughout his time with Leverkusen, to the point where he is now worth significantly more than Tierney, who is valued at £ 8.2m by transfermarkt.

His attacking contributions from a wing-back position for the German side also suggest that he is even better than the Scottish full-back, as the former Celtic man has racked up 28 goals and 39 assists in 178 appearances for the club – including 14 goals and ten assists last term.

Meanwhile, as aforementioned, Tierney has only assisted two goals, whilst failing to score a goal, at league level for Real Sociedad and Arsenal in the last 18 months.

Therefore, Frimpong has developed into an even better player than Tierney, as evidenced by his far superior market value and greater output in the final third on the pitch, and Celtic may rue that they only secured £11.5m from Leverkusen for his signature back in 2021.

Hopefully, though, Tierney will return to Parkhead next season and get back to his best in the Premiership to bolster Brendan Rodgers‘ chances of lifting more silverware in Glasgow.