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Daniel Podence Is A Fine Player, But Is He Really A Celtic Transfer Target?

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When I wrote about experience earlier, I didn’t expect a player with some to arise as a potential target quite so soon. Daniel Podence of Wolves is a fine footballer, with the right pedigree, and the sort of guy I would like to see us sign.

But I have my doubts that we’d even entertain the idea.

We will go for experience in this window, I have little doubt. But we won’t pay a premium fee for a player over 25, because that’s not just going outside the lines of the strategy, that’s quite possibly bursting the ball. Podence is valued at £12 million. If we’re going to spend £12 million, I would be shocked if we weren’t looking to recoup it somewhere down the line.

What would get for Daniel Podence in a year or two or three?

Not anywhere near that kind of money, that’s for sure.

If Brendan sees him as a marquee player, a good Jota replacement and wants to move for him I have no doubt the board will back that … but they’ll ask him if he’s sure, because that’s the kind of signing that changes the game board some and removes any future alibi for failure. For a club our size it’s a massive gamble you have to get right.

That fee is just way too high. At £6 million he’s a goer.

At £8 million you might think it’s worth a crack if he’s definitely going to be around for three or four years, and if those years include blasting you to a couple of Champions League Group Stages then you’ll make that money back and then some, whereas the downside is that if he doesn’t make it you can sell him in a year or two and get some of it back.

At £10 million you’re at the tipping point though, especially for a 27-year-old. At £12 million, the current Scottish transfer record, you can’t afford to get it wrong, and any manager who did spend that would be taking his chances with the axeman.

I like that we’re now regularly being linked with players from the EPL, although I think it’s too pricey a market in some ways and we can probably get our experience at a better value somewhere else. We’re surrounded by rumours and stories at the moment and whilst there’s quite possibly some truth out there somewhere, most of them will be rubbish.

Take the story this morning involving Quentin Merlin; The Daily Record got a whole days’ worth of articles out of that story, but I never touched it. Why not? Because Celtic sources denied any interest in him to the paper at the very first time of asking … so they basically generated a full day of news on something they knew had no news value at all.

Separating the fact from the fiction gets increasingly more difficult as the transfer window period goes on. That’s when a little common sense is a better barometer than what the so-called “in the knows” or experts are saying about a story.

Daniel Podence could definitely do a job for us, but at that fee I think we can do better, and younger, and still have something left over for a decent keeper. The Saudis moving for Jota might have caught us by surprise, but that there would be interest in him and that he might want to follow it up was certainly not surprising in the slightest, and I have to think, therefore, that we do have a list of targets somewhere that Brendan can work his way through.

He will also have some ideas of his own. Podence might well be one of them, in the same way Ryan Fraser might. But we can get Fraser much more cheaply, and spend the money we save on another part of the team. And that’s the thing here; if we spend that on one player that’s probably it, that’s the budget, and other parts of the team may have to go without.

Those are the sorts of decisions our manager is paid to make, and this is a big one. This window has a ways to go yet and a few surprises still in store … a signing like this would certainly qualify as amongst the most stunning.

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  • John L says:

    If 3 million a year brought success on the home front, then I believe it could be money well spent and I believe we will sell at least one of our valuable assets for more than that, thus balancing the books.

  • Frank says:

    not for me. Move on!

  • Frank says:

    Might go for Daniel Prodan???????????? eh naw but we do need a centre back

  • John S says:

    The English market (and wages) are inflated way beyond common-sense.

  • SSMPM says:

    Podence is a fine player right enough. We have more money than you allude to James. Podence is a fine player, one I’d like to sign, and £10/12m is a lot but we are in a position whereby we can afford a one off or even two and have Fraser which I’m not overly enamoured with tbh. He has more potential for failure.
    The probable drop in wages, as always, will be an issue for EPL players even ones that have Celtic FC on their CV wish list. Money talks sadly. Resolution on the Hatate situation would help with decisions too.
    Rodgers pre season £30m budget, plus Jota, Starfelt and other smaller transfer income adds up to plenty. Less, of course, the £11/£12m we’ve spent so far, that leaves us in a very comfortable position to make such sacrifice. HH

  • Johnny Green says:

    Podence? Until now I had never heard of him. I don’t tend to watch any of the EPL matches and certainly not the less glamorous outfits, therefore for me Podence did not exist until now and I have no idea how good he is, or not. I do know thought that the price tag for someone his age has got to be a no, no. for Celtic. It’s not even worth talking about. Is he any better than what we already have available, again I don’t know, but what we have available is affordable, he isn’t, so his potential incoming transfer should not even be a tempting consideration. We don’t work that way, we cut our cloth to suit our means, end of.

    • TicTastic says:

      Yes he is better than what we have and much better than Jota. We dont work that way – no we didnt and did not focus on Europe which according to reports has change and now focusing on Europe. We have £90M in the bank before this seasons UCL money plus £14m+ in this seasons transfer window.

  • SSMPM says:

    Good to see you’ve survived another year JG. It would be nicer still to debate this season with the moderation lifted. C’mon James whatabout it?
    To me Podence is easily an upgrade but I get the reality of Celtic’s imposed spending, just looking for occasional exceptions when we have an exceptional budget year. I’m not overly supportive of our model, after all it’s the model that couldn’t even see us get out of the CL qualifiers. Maybe what we need to get is a bigger bit of cloth to cut from.
    Anyway I hope we all have a season to celebrate fella. HH

  • TicTastic says:

    Its probably just paper talk, however BR’s target is success in Europe, I think they want to get out the CL groups or to at least 1/4 finals at least in the Europa. We need quality for that, we have decent players on the wide but none with the skills of Pedence. £12M is high though what is the point to bragging about how much is in the bank if it is not going to be invested into the team?

    I do believe we will get in 2 quality players before the window closes who these will be merely guess work

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