Celtic played transfer blinder with Klimala | OneFootball

Celtic sold French striker Odsonne Edouard this summer as he departed Parkhead just months after Ange Postecoglou was hired.

He joined Crystal Palace and the forward is now thriving in the Premier League for the Eagles, with two goals in four games for Patrick Vieira’s side.

The Hoops received a reported £15m, with his market value currently stood at £15.30m. This suggests that Celtic got a fair price for the attacker, with Palace now benefitting from his talents in England.

Another striker who left Parkhead in 2021 was Polish forward Patryk Klimala, who was sold to MLS outfit New York Red Bulls for £3.9m back in April.

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Klimala joined Celtic from Jagiellonia Bialystok in January 2020 and endured a torrid time at Parkhead as he struggled to find his form in Scotland. In 28 appearances for the club, Klimala scored just three goals and provided one assist as he failed to prove that he could be the go-to goalscorer in the Premiership.

He averaged a dismal SofaScore rating of 6.65 in the Premiership last term for Celtic. He missed a whopping five ‘big chances’ and lost 57% of his duels on the pitch. This shows that his quality in the final third let him down as he struggled to finish the chances that were evidently being created for him by his teammates.

Hoops pundit Peter Martin once criticised the striker and claimed that he was not good enough to play for the club. He said: “And then you’ve got Klimala, who for me, is not a Celtic player. He’s not at the level that Celtic are looking for.”

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This led to Celtic selling him to New York Red Bulls in April for a reported fee of £3.9m. He has since gone on to score eight times in 24 appearances for the MLS side, but his current market value suggests that the Hoops pulled off a blinder in the transfer market.

At the time of writing (12/10/21), the £5.8k-per-week Hoops flop is valued at £2.7m by Transfermarkt. This means that Celtic were able to rake in £1.2m more for Klimala than they should have been expected to, despite his dreadful form for the club in Scotland.

Therefore, Peter Lawwell was able to fleece Red Bulls and pull off a masterclass in the window as they cashed in on the young Poland U21 international. They were able to convince a team to overpay for a player who was not performing for the club on the pitch and then reinvest that money in players for Ange Postecoglou in the summer, with the likes of Kyogo Furuhashi and Jota coming in.