Is Celtic’s transfer model fit for purpose? Part One – Nicolas Kühn | OneFootball

With there being transfer news involving Celtic in abundance already this summer and with every story being well covered by my colleagues here on The Celtic Star, the one thing that has piqued my interest is the transfer fees being mooted in many of these cases.

Nicolas Kuhn of Celtic celebrates scoring his team’s second goal during the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Phase MD4 match between Celtic FC and RB Leipzig at Celtic Park on November 05, 2024. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

In my next set of articles I’m not only going to be focusing on the direct in’s and out’s at Celtic but also transfers involving some of our more recent former players who are once again on the move after leaving Glasgow in the past year or so. I will be also looking at the wider picture and trying to assimilate whether or not our transfer model is currently failing.

Firstly however I will start at possibly the biggest transfer story so far this summer. It seems the imminent departure of Nicholas Kuhn is almost confirmed, with even Brendan Rodgers touching upon the subject in recent days when he stated “We’ve virtually agreed between the club and Como, so it looks at this point that he’ll be on his way, but we just have to wait for confirmation”.

Nicolas Kuhn celebrates scoring his team’s second goal during the UEFA Champions League match between Celtic FC and RB Leipzig at Celtic Park on November 05, 2024. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

The price seems to be in and around the £16m mark which some fans are quite satisfied with. Personally I think it’s on the low side of what I would be expecting for a player who at times looked world class last season, who put in huge performances not only domestically but even more importantly in Europe on the grandest stage of them all, the Champions League.

Kuhn’s stats during the season were excellent and if it wasn’t for a late season dip in form and the stunning end to the season from Daizen Maeda he would more than likely have picked up Scotland’s player of the year awards. Kuhn played 51 games for Celtic last season, scoring 21 times and assisting another 15 goals. Included in that total are 3 goals and 1 assist in the Champions League with the goals coming against Germany sides RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich, top European clubs.

Nicolas Kuhn of Celtic celebrates scoring his team’s first goal during the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Phase MD4 match between Celtic FC and RB Leipzig at Celtic Park on November 05, 2024. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

If £16m had of been mentioned in February we would have all laughed and said double it. Especially when it involves about £1.6m heading Rapid Vienna’s way if reports about their sell on fee are true. Now however it seems an acceptable price to both Celtic and a lot of our fans.

Why? Because of a few months where he took his foot off the gas in a league campaign in which we were running away with? Yes it looks pretty obvious that the German wants a move this summer, but that doesn’t mean we have to trade a star player who is on a long contract for such a low fee.

Now I am the last person who wants to keep a player at Celtic who obviously wants to leave. We learnt our lesson on that one the hard way during the Covid season involving the infamous ‘wantaways’ and I’m glad the club hasn’t made that mistake since.

Nicolas Kuehn of Celtic celebrates scoring his team’s first goal during the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Knockout Play-off second leg match between FC Bayern München and Celtic FC at Allianz Arena on February 18, 2025 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

It doesn’t mean however that we need to sell on the cheap. When Atletico Madrid came calling for Matt O’Riley and tabled a derisory offer we kicked it out and held our nerve and it paid off as Brighton ended up paying a lot more for the Danish internationals services. I feel we could have done the same with Kuhn.

Spaniard Jesús Rodríguez from Real Betis & Croatian Martin Baturina from Dinamo Zagreb have also recently signed for Como and both fetched their clubs bigger fees than we got for Kuhn even though the Germans stats are considerably better, albeit both players are younger than Kuhn so maybe have more potential moving forward. It all leaves me however feeling like Como are getting a serious bargain from Celtic.

Nicolas Kuehn of Celtic celebrates scoring his team’s first goal during the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Knockout Play-off second leg match between FC Bayern München and Celtic FC at Allianz Arena on February 18, 2025 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images)

In my next article I will be looking at a few players who have left Celtic in the past year and are seemingly on the move again, with rumoured transfer fees greater than what we got for them recently, hardening my opinion that we are selling players on the cheap.

Conall McGinty

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