Celtic soaring towards £40m transfer as giddy Owen Hargreaves raves about them and puts neck on line over Engels

Impressed Owen Hargreaves is utterly certain Celtic are soaring towards bagging a £40million transfer fee for one of their best players.

The former England international – who won the most prestigious tournament in club football with Bayern Munich and Manchester United – loves what the Premiership champions are all about after landing £30m from Brighton for Matt O’Riley. Hargreaves – who will be a pundit when Celtic are in Champions League action – is utterly certain Arne Engels will be a smash-hit as he has been left impressed by Brendan Rodgers’ side when it comes to buying and selling.

Speaking to the Scottish Sun, Hargreaves said: “Yeah, but it should be because of inflation and the price of everything going up. You see it everywhere. So why should it not happen in football? Brendan knows his stuff. He’s not going to miss with Engels when they’ve invested that level of money in him. Celtic have done a good job on transfers.

“Look at the Japanese market and the way they’ve done well there and find little niches. I also think learning to play at a club like Celtic is really amazing because the history of the football club is exceptional. One of the best. Then you get the expectation from the crowd. You get to compete in big games. You get an experienced manager like Brendan Rodgers You couldn’t dream of anything more as a young kid. You have all that going in your favour.

“If you can manage on that stage and flourish, with all those expectations and demands, then the natural progression is you will get a big move. It happened with Virgil van Dijk. You’ll go play somewhere else because then Celtic will look to cash in and they’ll reinvest and the scouting has to be good. I love it when young guys go to places where there are demands on them and where they have to learn to perform at a top level consistently. if that’s the way you think mentally, then I think it’s nothing but a positive.”

And Hargreaves has drawn parallels between Celtic and Brighton after the Seagulls paid a premium to land Denmark international O’Riley. And the pundit reckons the commitment to look in lesser-spotted locations is vital.

He added: “Brighton have done such an amazing job of that. They fish in pools that other people just don’t find interesting enough to go and try for themselves. “A good player doesn’t have to come from one of the bigger nations like Brazil or Spain or England.They are everywhere. I think the trick is to go where nobody knows who they are and get them pretty cheap. That’s where recruitment is crazy important.

“Sometimes you’ve got to take a punt on a player but I think that talent pool is undiminished around the world. There are so many amazing young kids out there to be discovered. You’ve just got to get them before everybody else knows who they are. That’s where you make your money.”