The thing about a player trading model, when you establish values you are willing to sell your top talent at, as the years go on and inflation rises, these figures tend to rise with that.
Perhaps at times will stay the same or perhaps even decrease, depending on the age of the player, length of contract and future potential, but typically, if all those values are similar, then the value of the player will typically increase over time.
There is a really wide variation amongst Celtic supporters at what would be an acceptable value to sell Josip Juranovic at.
I’ve seen from £10m all the way up to £40m! Everyone will have their own opinion as to what we can realistically get for Juranovic.
But remember, a precedent was set with the Kieran Tierney transfer when he went for a record breaking £25m back in 2019.
If you want to make the argument that we’d have to accept less than that due to Tierney being 22 at the time and having the potential to go for a lot more money if Arsenal sold him a few years later, compared to Juranovic at 27, who will most likely be getting his last big move, then I can understand that argument because it’s a fair one.
However, it all depends on what level of clubs have a genuine interest in Juranovic, because the elite level clubs, the ones competing to with league titles in England and Spain and Champions League trophies, aren’t interested in buying to sell, they are interested in buying to achieve success in terms of winning big trophies.
These clubs will absolutely pay Tierney type money for a World Cup semi-finalist right-back, who was one of the top three right-backs in Qatar and has just come back from pocketing Vinicius Jr against Brazil.
And that is why it is so strange to see media, not just in Scotland, but in England and Spain, quoting down right INSULTING figures of £6m and £8m for Juranovic going to Barcelona and Chelsea.
Yes, as I talked about earlier, our whole fanbase seem to have a wide variation on what they would sell Juranovic at, but I can guarantee you not a single one in their right mind would say any of these two figures were acceptable!
And in my opinion, I am not concerned about these nonsense fees being quoted in the press, because our club will not accept anything close to these amounts.
I think they’d rather keep Juranovic and have three right-backs, rather than sell him for an insulting low-ball figure.
Because that undoes the precedent that we set with Tierney back in 2019, when we told Arsenal we wanted £25m up-front and not a penny less and we got it.
Why on earth would we allow ourselves to be bullied into accepting low-ball offers? Because if we do that, then clubs will know they can take advantage of us and they can keep doing it.
A strong stance is needed on this from Celtic, we cannot allow ourselves to be pushed around here, and I don’t think we will.
Start at £20m and we’ll think about it. No more being taken for an easy touch.