Ronan Murphy of Football Transfers has supplied some detail to the sketchy information going around about Celtic’s interest in Arne Engels.
Eighteen months on from a £100,000 move from Club Brugge to Augsburg it seems like close to ad additional two zeros will have to be added if Celtic are to take the young Belgian from the Bundesliga outfit.
Having turned weeks into months to secure deals for Paulo Bernardo and Adam Idah it will require a completely different approach to get deals completed before Friday’s 11pm deadline.
Augsburg aren’t a club used to big transfer deals but equally they are under no pressure to sell Engels although his new found status is unlikely to be matched in the contract he is on which was signed as an 18-year-old.
Anthony Joseph’s tweet that Celtic had offered £6.5m seems impressive but that seems close to the combined fees raised by selling Oh Hyeon-gyu and Bosun Lawal.
With Celtic expecting to bring in over £25m for the transfer of Matt O’Riley they might discover that offering 25% of the Brighton fee for a replacement isn’t going to overly impressive the Augsburg CEO.
Understand that this opening bid is much lower than Augsburg’s valuation of Arne Engels, so expect some more negotiating by/with Celtic before anything gets done.#FCA #CelticFC https://t.co/yyrxIw7Ua9
— Ronan Murphy (@swearimnotpaul) August 26, 2024
Picking up on the issue on Football Transfers, Murphy reports:
As revealed exclusively earlier this month, Engels is the top priority for Brendan Rodgers’ side, as the Scottish champions are set to sell Matt O’Riley to Brighton.
The Bhoys are expected to receive a £25 million fee for O’Riley, a record sale for a Scottish club, which would then be reinvested in Engels.
Celtic submitted a bid for Engels on Sunday evening, believed to be around £6.5m, but this is lower than Augsburg are willing to sell for, and negotiations between the clubs will have to continue to find a solution.
The 20-year-old midfielder has already agreed personal terms with Celtic, so that will not prove a stumbling block for the deal.
Many Bhoys fans were concerned that a transfer might fall through when Engels was named in FCA’s opening league fixture against Werder Bremen at the weekend, helping Ausgburg record a 2-2 draw with a strong showing in midfield.
However, Augsburg head coach Jess Thorup was simply picking his strongest XI for the Bundesliga opener, and wanted to utilise Engels in the hope that any transfer speculation would not impact his performance.
Engels had been linked with a move to West Ham in the past before he decided to join Augsburg from Club Brugge, having been one of the star performers in their academy sides.
His performances in the Bundesliga for the Bavarian side also did not go unnoticed by Belgium manager Domenico Tedesco, who called him into the international camp before Euro 2024 to cast an eye over him as he looked to select the 26 players to travel to Germany with the Red Devils.
Should a deal be reached before Deadline Day, Engels would be Celtic’s second major signing in as many weeks, having already broken their club transfer record to sign Ireland international striker Adam Idah from Norwich for £8.5m.
In just over three weeks time Celtic open their Champions League campaign, having waited until this stage of the window to sign outfield players they could end up paying a premium or missing out as Michael Nicholson’s strategy, learned from his mentor is put to the test.
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