On the face of it, making a profit of around £18.5m on a player before even considering future add-ons would seem like very good business for Celtic.
Indeed, if the club do decide to accept a bid of around £20m up front plus extras that is currently being readied by Southampton for Matt O’Riley, they could trumpet the deal as an exemplar of their transfer model.
But when some context is applied, it would make little to no sense for Celtic to bite on the first offer dangled before them for their star man this summer.
For a start, O’Riley isn’t short of admirers. Atletico Madrid, of course, had an offer for the Denmark international booted out in January, which was understood to be a loan-to-buy deal eventually worth around £18m to Celtic.
The Spanish giants remain interested, and with the greatest of respect to Russell Martin’s Saints, would seem to be a more attractive destination for the player himself. Fighting it out at the top of La Liga and in the Champions League surely holds more appeal than scrapping to avoid relegation from the English Premier League.
Inter are also known to have been long-time admirers of O’Riley, so the offer from Southampton, when it arrives, is hardly likely to be the best and final that Celtic receive.
There was great mirth among some Rangers supporters when O’Riley wasn’t named in Kasper Hjulmund’s Danish squad for Euro 2024, with some taking that snub as evidence that Celtic’s supposed £30m valuation of O’Riley was overblown, despite the consternation his omission caused in Denmark.
Undoubtedly, there is still a glass ceiling on what clubs elsewhere will pay for players from Scottish clubs. But it isn’t as though O’Riley has only excelled in the Scottish Premiership. He has shown himself to be more than at home mixing it in the Champions League too, even when Celtic have collectively struggled.
When you have players such as Elliot Anderson and Yankubah Minteh moving on from Newcastle United for upwards of £30m each this week with limited matches under their belts (and Minteh’s only first-team appearances coming in the Eredivisie during a loan spell with Feyenoord), then it isn’t so outrageous to say that Celtic should be looking for a comparable return on O’Riley, a 23-year-old international with 12 largely impressive Champions League appearances to his name.
There is also O’Riley’s contract to consider. He signed a new deal with Celtic last October that runs until the summer of 2027, leaving Celtic in a strong negotiating position. To agree to that deal though, and the protection it gave Celtic against potential suitors for O’Riley, the player will likely have been made assurances that the club won’t be unreasonable in their demands should an attractive proposition arise.
As ever, fairly or not, the league Celtic compete in is also a factor to consider. While O’Riley’s omission from the Denmark squad for the Euros wasn’t in any way a gauge of his valuation in the transfer market, the subsequent comments from Danish head coach Hjulmund left no doubts around his opinion on the standard of the league, and that he had used it in the ‘con’ column when considering whether to call up O’Riley for the plane to Germany.
You could certainly charge him with ignorance for such a dismissal of the level, especially when he said it was beneath the Danish Superliga, but would he have left O’Riley out if he was rattling about the bottom of the English Premier League? Probably not.
O’Riley has international ambitions, and if playing in Scotland is harming his chances of representing Denmark, then that too will have to be taken into consideration.
He is a level-headed character, mature beyond his years, and definitely isn’t one to be knocking on Brendan Rodgers’ door to demand a move. But O’Riley himself admitted that his brief dip in form after the winter transfer window was prompted by his focus being affected by the offer from Atletico Madrid.
Whether a gentleman’s agreement exists between the club and the player to allow him to leave this summer or not, the level of interest around him would make it seem inconceivable that he could stay.
That doesn’t mean though that either the Celtic board's heads or O’Riley’s own should or will be turned by what Southampton are bringing to the table. O’Riley is one of the finest midfielders to have graced the Scottish game in recent years, has performed well on the biggest stage in club football, and has a long international career ahead of him.
In the current market, to accept anything less than the club record £25m Celtic attracted for Kieran Tierney and Jota would be folly. And would undervalue a player who could comfortably fit into almost any side on the continent at present, and who has the potential to improve towards the real elite level.
