The name Fabien Rieder has been in the thoughts of Celtic fans over the weekend.
With Jota appearing to be on the brink of a £25m move to Al Ittihad of Saudi Arabia and Reo Hatate possibly joining him Brendan Rodgers could be walking in on a big creativity gap. And a massive transfer pot.
Rieder’s name was thrown up with a few jigsaw pieces put together concluding that he is on his way to Celtic as the new manager looks to maintain domestic success while driving the club forward in Europe.
The midfielder has just ended his season with four appearances at the UEFA u-21 European Championships which ended in defeat to Spain at the quarter-final stage.
What happens next is of interest to Celtic fans but because the manager probably has the biggest ever transfer budget doesn’t mean that he can just go out and bring in a couple of signings at £12m or £13m.
Celtic’s record fee paid out was for a player that had barely played for his club but Rodgers trusted the pedigree of Odsonne Edouard and the reality of trying to break through at Paris Saint Germain.
Rieder is in a very different position, he has three seasons of regular football at BSC Young Boys on his CV and appears ready for the next step.
A move to neighbouring Germany, France or Italy would seem the logical move but maybe, just maybe a vision of Celtic has been put his way that that has captured the imagination of the Swiss u-21 internationalist who sees the EPL as his ultimate destination.
This guy is exactly what we need. https://t.co/PNHiYlLmb8
— Ryan Clifford (@Ryanclifford11) July 2, 2023
Sign him up 5 year contract
— jambo 10 (@sam32897888) July 2, 2023
Looks a fantastic talent
— Bryzo (@Bryzo34) July 2, 2023
Not a chance will end up in germany
— one club since 1888. (@wrighty1888) July 2, 2023
But why would a 21 yr old Swiss International, 1st Team Player from Swiss Champions move to play in SPFL?
— Mo (@Notts52) July 2, 2023
That’s a lot of Johnny for a 21 year old.
Looks great in the showreel but there’s few attempts to tackle him in it. In the SPFL Premiership there’d be throat-high tackles every time he got the ball….his first visit to Tynecastle might be an eye-opener.
To paraphrase the headline of the article, get reel.
Celtic are not going to spend £16M on one player.
Certainly not in this cycle of the model.
That fee would be two cycles at least down the line and that would be when we were selling players for £35M-£40M.
Unfortunately that is the rub: to get that money for our players they would need to be getting us into the last 16 of the Champions League but to achieve that level of success we need to keep turnover to a minimum.
He would want to be in the same shop window that Jota was in and £25 million other reasons