Worrying Rumours About Arne Engels' Celtic Exit Grow

Rumours have been swirling this summer surrounding what feels like the entirety of the Celtic squad. With discussions taking place around Manchester City, Manchester United and Atalanta, things have begun to get extremely interesting for the Scottish side.

One of the most intriguing rumours going around is tied to their club-record signing Arne Engels, who joined just last summer.

Engels has been linked to Atalanta as a replacement option with Ederson being linked with Man City and Man Utd. The question then becomes, would Celtic even entertain a potential move for the Belgian midfielder during this summer transfer window? Or rather, should they?

Engels is coming off a solid 2024-2025 campaign for the Scottish side, and he has rapidly improved himself as a player.

Moving on from him would be ill-advised. When it comes down to it, though, Celtic have parted with many different players in recent years, making enormous profit off some of their top talents to utilise on developmental options. Should that be the case here, though?

With These Rumours Established, Should Celtic Even Consider Moving Engels?

To put this in the simplest terms possible, no, Celtic should not be entertaining the large majority of offers for Engels at the moment. The one exception to this would be an absolutely astronomical bid coming in from Atalanta that completely blows his market value out of the water.

Something in excess of €20 million. Is that a lot? No doubt. But this is also a 21-year-old talent who could be the cornerstone of this club for the next 10 years or more.

The talent is clear when it comes to Engels, especially in regards to his statistical value. He ranks 80th percentile or higher in five key statistics, and above average in multiple others. The most notable are assists (90th percentile), expected assisted goals (96th percentile), non-penalty expected goals plus assisted goals (93rd percentile), and progressive passes received (86th percentile) according to fbref.

A lot of Celtic's buildup runs through him, Reo Hatate and Callum McGregor on essentially every play that goes anywhere. And at only 21 years of age, he has plenty of room to grow even further to provide more value.