Celtic struck gold selling £2.5m forward

As Celtic chase a sixth treble in nine seasons, what is the primary factor behind their continued domination of Scottish football?

Well, of course, the Hoops have more money than everybody else, which certainly helps, but it’s only due to their excellent recruitment, both in terms of buying and selling players, they are able to maximise this financial advantage.

According to the Fair Game Index, the Celts are the best-run club in Britain, and the Premiership champions often get decisions in the transfer market right, certainly striking gold by selling a flop for £2.5m, who’s done very little since departing.

He was signed under Ange Postecoglou who got a lot right while in Glasgow.

The best and worst of Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic signings

During two seasons at Celtic, Postecoglou won five major honours, signing a total of 29 players, with Alison Conroy of Sky Sports noting that he ‘tapped into his knowledge…of markets…rarely explored before’, most notably the J League.

Graham Falk of the Scotsman believes that the majority of these signings were major successes, so let’s assess some of the best.

As the table outlines, Celtic have made an enormous profit by selling players.

Chief among there are Kyōgo Furuhashi, Giorgos Giakoumakis, Liel Abada and, Matt O’Riley, while Reo Hatate, Jota, Daizen Maeda, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Alistair Johnston are key figures in Brendan Rodgers’ current side.

However, this table does not include all of Postecoglou’s signings, more than half have been left off, with one in particular, who did very little during his time at Parkhead, not impressing since departing either, showing that Celtic did extremely well to sell him for £2.5m.

What happened to Ange’s forgotten Celtic forward

In the summer of 2022, Celtic signed wide-forward Sead Hakšabanović from Russian Premier League club Rubin Kazan for a reported fee of £1.75m.

Despite having only just celebrated his 23rd birthday at the time, Hakšabanović was already a bit of a journeyman, having been on the books of Halmstads BK, West Ham United, Málaga, Norrköping, the aforementioned Rubin Kazan and then Djurgården on loan before landing in Glasgow.

At his unveiling, Hakšabanović stated he wanted to achieve “something similar” to Henrik Larsson, widely considered the club’s best player of the modern era, and suffice to say he did not live up to those expectations, despite being labelled a ‘great talent’ by Euan Robertson of Football Scotland.

In 42 appearances for Celtic, the Swedish-born Montenegro international scored just five goals, three of which came in November 2022, earning him the Premiership’s Player of the Month award, albeit he did very little after that.

Finding himself not in Rodgers’ plans, Hakšabanović spent last season on loan at Stoke City in the EFL Championship, but scored only once in 21 appearances for the Potters, never able to establish himself as a regular starter under either Alex Neil nor Steven Schumacher.

Despite this, Allsvenskan champions Malmö decided to pay a reported £2.5m for his services, and this move certainly has not paid off for the Sky Blues so far.

To date, the forward has made just five appearances for the Nordic giants, yet to register either a goal or an assist, sidelined since August due to a groin injury. To put his torrid numbers into context, he’s scored three fewer than the much-maligned Greg Taylor. Grim reading indeed for the attacker.

Johan Flinck of Swedish outlet Sportbladet labels Hakšabanović a ‘flop’, adding he is yet to ‘show his skills on the pitch’, underlining that Celtic did extremely well to sell the misfiring winger for a profit last summer.

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