Celtic may be forced to pay over the odds this summer

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Celtic may be forced to pay over the odds for some new recruits this summer after banking £25million for Kieran Tierney.

The Scotland international’s record-breaking move to Arsenal was seen as good business for the club. Although some wanted to see Tierney stay, they understood that the financial reward on offer for both the player and Celtic was hard to turn down.

But now, as we hunt for his replacement, it seems like other clubs have noticed that financial reward too.

The Greg Taylor conundrum – what should Celtic pay?

The Daily Record reported on Friday that Kilmarnock have set an asking price of £3million for Greg Taylor. They say that the Hoops recently got in touch with the Ayrshire side and told them they want to sign the full-back before being told the hefty valuation.

At least it sounds hefty. In reality, £3million is nothing to Celtic given the money we have accumulated in the past few seasons. We banked around eight times that for Tierney and to suggest he’s eight times the player of Taylor is probably a little unfair on the Killie man.

It’s no surprise to see a Scottish club stand up to us in the transfer market. In the past 12 months both Motherwell and Aberdeen have given us hefty asking prices for David Turnbull and Scott McKenna respectively. These clubs are no longer as keen to sell to a team in their league.

They’re largely in a better financial position, keen to keep their player and also know that the English market could see them get as much, if not more, money for their prized asset.

The real question Celtic must be pondering is if Kilmarnock would have asked for £3million prior to Tierney’s sale. It’s probably fair to assume that the Rugby Park side have seen the £ signs after watching us bank £25million for the 22-year-old.

You can’t really blame them either. What you can blame is Celtic’s inability to get this deal done early in the transfer window. We should’ve signed Taylor at the start of the summer. That way he would have been bedded in by now. And we would likely not have paid the £3million being mentioned now.