During the all-important January transfer window, Nottingham Forest heavily tested Celtic’s resolve with eye-watering bids for Arne Engels.
At the time, with Sean Dyche at the City Ground helm and Forest pushing hard, the financial lure of the Premier League was pretty tempting.
Despite the overwhelming chaos surrounding the club and the dramatic second coming of Martin O’Neill, the powers that be at Celtic stood firm, flat-out rejecting the £25 million bids for Engels.
Fast forward to the present day, and that defiant stance looks like an absolute masterstroke for the champions of Scotland, and perhaps from Engels’ perspective.
Not only was the man who wanted to sign Engels sacked, but on Thursday night, Vitor Pereira’s side suffered a devastating Europa League semi-final second-leg collapse at the hands of Aston Villa.
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Was Arne Engels right to stay at Celtic?
In a beautifully poetic twist of fate, it was boyhood Celtic supporter John McGinn who put Forest to the sword at a rampant Villa Park.
The all-action Scotland star netted a brilliant brace to dump Forest out of the competition.
Crucially, that agonising and morale-sapping defeat officially extinguishes Forest’s hopes of securing European football for next season.
For Engels, the contrast simply couldn’t be starker.
By staying put at Celtic Park, Engels completely dodged the managerial chaos and European heartbreak unfolding down south, even if life in Glasgow hasn’t exactly been drama-free this season either.
Instead, Celtic’s club-record transfer of £11 million remains a vital cog in a relentless O’Neill machine.
With the mouth-watering opportunity to lift two more trophies before this current campaign concludes, it is glaringly obvious that both the player and the club made exactly the right call.
Reo Hatate isn’t even coming off the bench anymore. Callum McGregor is being overused, and winter signing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is hardly starting.
So, it makes Engels even more important to Celtic’s cause in the middle of the park, as a domestic double is well and truly on.
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