OWEN HARGREAVES has backed Brendan Rodgers to develop our game’s first £40million player.
Celtic sold Matt O’Riley in a £30m deal that shattered the previous best for a player sold from the Premiership.
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Hoops boss Rodgers then broke the club’s record when he landed Arne Engels in an £11m deal from Augsburg.
Rodgers reckons the cash splashed on the Belgian superkid will pay off — and ex-England midfielder and Champions League pundit Hargreaves agrees.
Asked whether a player being flogged for £40m is close, he said: “Yeah, but it should be because of inflation and the price of everything going up.
“You see it everywhere else so why should it not happen in football?
“Brendan knows his stuff.
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“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 finding 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.”
Celtic sold O’Riley to Brighton in a £30m record deal and Hargreaves thinks the Seagulls are a great example to the Hoops.
He said: “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.
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“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.”
Hargreaves has witnessed Celtic being dismantled by Champions League big guns.
But the TNT Sports pundit reckons the Hoops shouldn’t have anything to fear from their latest mouthwatering draw.
Brendan Rodgers’ side kick off the new-look competition next Wednesday when Slovak champs Slovan Bratislava visit Parkhead.
Glamour clashes with Borussia Dortmund, Atalanta, RB Leipzig, Club Brugge, Dinamo Zagreb, Young Boys and Aston Villa then follow.
Incredibly, last season’s Matchday Six win over Feyenoord was the Hoops’ first Champions League group stage victory at home in a decade.
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But Hargreaves — who came through at Bayern Munich then moved to Manchester United — insists the new format could be perfect for them.
He told SunSport: “I always find it’s tricky for teams like Celtic in the Champions League because people are always so hypercritical with the fact they don’t get into the later stages.
“But the budgets are vastly different. So what do people expect?
“Financially it’s great for them to be in it but, let’s be honest, it’s not realistic to think they’re going to go and win it.
“This new format could maybe benefit them, though. You’re not doing a home and away against Barcelona or Manchester City.
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“Brendan is back where he wants to be and a guy like Kasper Schmeichel is a good addition. This new league might be able to help them too.
“They’ve got some tough games but at least half of them are winnable. Brendan will be super optimistic and positive.”
Dortmund were last year’s shock finalists but have since replaced Edin Terzic with his assistant Nuri Sahin — and former England midfielder Hargreaves reckons Rodgers will have a game plan to attack in Germany on Matchday Two.
He added: “Dortmund have got a young manager who was a very good and technical central midfielder. He was quite a smart player and he’s going to play a certain way.
“He’ll want quite attacking football but Brendan will have a game plan for that.
“He’s trying to learn his trade. They got to the Champions League final, but that was still one of the weaker Dortmund teams I’ve seen in a decade.
“They came together in big moments. It’s interesting because they’re not the team they once were but they’ve still got some good players.
“I don’t think Celtic need to fear Dortmund, though. Leipzig are, for me, a stronger side.
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“They’re a really well-coached side under Marco Rose. They’ve got some really good players at the top of the pitch.
“Lois Openda is a really good player, Benjamin Sesko is a super striker as well.
“The way Rose has them playing with them being aggressive in and out of possession makes them hard to play against.
“That could be a tough game. But Brendan will play his way, the way he’s done his whole career. They can be optimistic.”
Rodgers’ own European record has often been used as a stick to beat him.
Hargreaves, 43, reckons he might benefit from putting the handbrake on his style at the right moments.
He said: “The Champions League is obviously a brilliant competition but some of the smaller teams do well in their league and try to play all this beautiful football.
“In the Champions League you can get hurt. We’ve seen that sometimes with Celtic in the past in the Champions League.
“Sometimes you have to adjust a little bit. It’s still nice to play but you’ve got to find a way to win games and get results.”
This summer the Hoops lost star man Matt O’Riley to Brighton in a £30million-plus deal that shattered the record for the biggest transfer fee for a player sold by a Scottish club.
They also broke their own record after landing Arne Engels from Augsburg for £11m.
Hargreaves tipped O’Riley as a player who was going places when he first saw him and reckons he’ll be a huge loss.
He said: “I said to Rio Ferdinand a few years ago I couldn’t believe nobody had picked up this guy O’Riley.
“Losing him is a big thing to Celtic, with his goals and assists. It’ll be interesting to see who steps up with that.
“The German boy Nicolas Kuhn has started the season well and is quite good.
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“Celtic lose out with O’Riley leaving but financially you gain a lot too.
“Then it’s up to the clubs to reinvest the money on who they see fit.
“I’m happy for O’Riley to get an opportunity to go and take that next step. He also probably wants that for his career
“A player goes and then the young ones have got to step up.
“You get a chance, you’ve got to take it. But I do think he’s a tough replacement. Technically, he was so calm on the ball.
“He dealt with the pressure quite well. Celtic’s a massive football club. You know the expectations and demands.
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“It takes a bit of time to get that level of consistency. But O’Riley was seven, eight out of ten every game.”
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