There is a thread on FF just now about Calvin Bassey, with the general consensus is that they value him at £25m.
The problem with this valuation is they aren’t basing it off of how good a player Bassey is, or what they have sold players for in the past that are at a similar standard, they are solely basing it off the fact that Celtic got £25m for Kieran Tierney.
Does anyone think they have weighed up his performances over the past two seasons and decided based on those performances, that he is worth £25m? Or does anyone even believe that is a random valuation they have just happened to come up with?
No. It’s the simple fact that Tierney went for a Scottish transfer record to Arsenal for £25m and they are utterly desperate to match the fee that we received for him.
The guy is a good player, a better athlete than player, but a good player none the less. But let’s be honest, there was no talk whatsoever of £25m fees before the Europa League Final and Scottish Cup Final where Bassey played two great games. No talk at all.
And why is that? Because those were performances out of the norm for him. He had the two best games of his life at the end of the season. You’re lucky if he played half as well as that during the rest of the season.
The fee we received from Tierney still eats away at them, they still can’t believe we got that for him. There is an epic thread on that site in the days leading up to his transfer to Arsenal, with their forum members absolute convinced the story was made up nonsense, with countless comments saying ‘no way would Arsenal pay £25m for ‘biscuit hips’ Tierney’ for the lot of them to be left completely shell shocked when the transfer was official confirmed.
Some of them even now try to deny we actually received the full £25m, even though it is in our financial accounts for everyone to see.
And what they refuse to register, because they refuse to admit how good Tierney was at Celtic and of course still is now for Arsenal, is that he did it at a high level for multiple seasons at Celtic. He was winning undefeated trebles under Brendan Rodgers, playing fantastic in the Champions League against teams like Manchester City and against top teams in the Europa League. Consistently!
Tierney didn’t just have a fairly good season with two great games at the very end to make him worth £25m, he was consistently great at Celtic for about 3 season in a row while still at a very young age.
And of course that fee we received was also helped by the fact in the seasons before we had sold the likes of Van Dijk, Forster, Wanyama, even McGeady for £10m plus transfer fees, who then went on to have successful careers and proved they could cut it in the EPL.
Clubs in England trust us. They believe our players can go down to England and perform. Whereas so far the only player Sevco have sold for decent money is Patterson, who so far has completely flopped at Everton.
What do you think that does for the trust levels of Sevco players that EPL clubs will have for them? It certainly doesn’t help!
Again though, I’ll always say that it is not impossible that a club from England buys him for silly money, because the EPL is known for silly clubs paying silly money for players, so I will never say it’s impossible.
But is it likely? Is it realistic? Is he actually worth £25m? Not a chance in hell. And if Sevco continue to value their players at unrealistic prices that clubs just aren’t willing to pay, then their player trading model that they are trying desperately to copy Celtic on, simply won’t get off the ground.
