Engels stands out a mile as Celtic’s most saleable asset.

Today we found out that Lazio are sniffing around Celtic’s most expensive player, Arne Engels, and I’m not even slightly surprised to read a story like that.

There has been a lot of speculation around Engels this season. Some of it has been real, some of it has been noise, but the one thing we know for a fact is that Nottingham Forest readied a massive bid for him in January, which Celtic turned down.

Forest have been through several evolutions since then. So have plenty of other clubs across Europe. But the interest in Engels remains. It is real, and I suspect it will generate a major bid in the summer.

Engels is one of those players who has been targeted simply because of the man who signed him. I don’t care what anyone says, Arne Engels has already shown that he has quality, and he has already shown that the move to sign him was the correct one.

Almost everyone would recognise this except, of course, those who decided from the beginning that because Brendan Rodgers signed him, the transfer had to be used as a stick with which to beat the former manager.

Such is the endless quest to tarnish the Rodgers legacy that people will go to almost any extreme and use almost any excuse to attack the work he did here. Engels became part of that. The fee became part of that. The expectations around him became warped almost from the start.

But Engels’ signing was not some reckless indulgence. It was not Celtic throwing money into the wind. It was not some lunatic gamble. His signing was a perfectly defensible piece of modern recruitment because there was never any serious chance that Celtic would fail to make that money back.

That is how top clubs do things. It is also how medium-ranked clubs with ambitions of climbing into the top bracket do things.

The signing of a player for an eight-figure sum is not an unusual concept across European football. Even in leagues smaller than Scotland’s, and even at clubs with smaller reputations than Celtic’s, top sides routinely spend that kind of money and recoup it.

In fact, that is practically the foundation of their business model. The key is not whether you spend big. The key is whether you spend big on the right sort of player.

That means players who will appeal to clubs in Germany, Italy, England and France. Players with the basic traits that recruitment departments across Europe are looking for. A high degree of technical proficiency. Athleticism. Physicality. Tactical flexibility. Youth. Development potential. Resale value.

Engels has all of those things. It has been obvious since the moment we signed him that he had all of those things.

That is why the debate around him has always felt slightly dishonest. People have judged him almost entirely through the prism of the fee, but not through the logic of why that fee was paid in the first place. Celtic were not buying a finished £25 million player. They were buying a player who had the shape of one.

That distinction matters.

Before he came to Celtic, Engels was a flexible Bundesliga central midfielder. Engels could play deeper. He could play on the right side of midfield. He could move higher up the pitch. The guy had delivery, range, technique and an engine. Augsburg used him in different ways because he was capable of doing different things.

That, in truth, is part of what made him attractive.

Where I think Rodgers made an error was in purely seeing Engels as an attacking player. Engels does have attacking qualities. The mistake was over-emphasising that side of his game and asking people to judge him almost entirely on final-third output.

That narrowed the player. It made the fee look heavier than it needed to look. It encouraged people to look at goals and assists and ask whether he was worth the money, when the real value was always in the full package.

Engels was never a luxury number ten. He was never just an attacking midfielder. Engels was a modern central midfielder with a lot of routes to usefulness.

He could help you progress the ball or deliver from wide and central areas. He could carry responsibility in possession. Engels could work defensively. He could cover ground. He could grow physically and become more than one type of player.

That is the point.

Celtic bought a profile. Forest saw that same profile. Lazio now appear to see it too.

The people who do this for a living are not looking at Engels and asking only whether he has dominated every domestic game in Scotland. They are asking what he might become if placed inside their structure, in their league, under their coaches, surrounded by players who may suit him better.

That is why the stats alone do not fully explain the interest.

On the numbers, Engels has been good rather than spectacular. His output has been respectable. He has contributed goals and assists and created chances. He has shown flashes of real quality. But if you look only at the public statistical record, you are not going to find a player whose numbers alone scream Scottish record transfer fee.

That is not what this is about.

The value is in the combination. Bundesliga background. Belgian international pathway. European football with Celtic. Contract control. Age. Physical frame. Technical ability. Set-piece quality. Positional flexibility. Potential resale value.

Those are the boxes. Engels ticks a whole lot of them.

This is where Celtic’s critics get it wrong. They look at the fee and judge the player as if he had to arrive fully formed. That is not how this market works. Celtic paid a big fee because they believed the player could grow into something worth significantly more. That is exactly what clubs are supposed to do.

We cannot complain forever that Celtic shop in the bargain bin, then lose our minds the moment they behave like a serious football club.

There is a risk in every transfer. Of course there is.

But some risks are smarter than others. Signing a young midfielder from the Bundesliga with technical quality, physical tools, development upside and a route into the Belgian setup is a smart risk. It is far smarter than spending smaller sums on players with no obvious pathway to becoming elite assets. The problem was never the concept of signing Engels. The problem was the noise around him.

People decided early that he was a Rodgers vanity project. They decided the money was too much. They decided he had to justify it immediately and that anything short of domination was failure.

That is a childish way to judge a young footballer.

Engels has not been perfect. Nobody sensible would argue that he has.

There have been games where he has drifted. There have been games where he has looked unsure of the role. Even times when the team structure has not helped him. Yet there have been moments where he has looked like exactly what he is, a young player still working out how best to impose himself.

But none of that changes the bigger point. There is a player there. There has always been a player there.

Other clubs can see it because they are not burdened by the weird domestic politics around Brendan Rodgers. They are not sitting on phone-ins trying to win arguments about whether the previous manager’s recruitment was good or bad. They are not trying to make Engels fit a pre-written narrative.

These clubs are looking at the raw material.

They see a young midfielder with technical skill and the physicality to play at a higher level. They see someone who needs building in terms of strength and sharpness, but who already carries several of the traits elite clubs want. These clubs see someone who can play in Europe, who can take responsibility on the ball, who can handle different midfield roles and who has not yet reached anything close to his ceiling.

That is what Forest saw in January. That is what Lazio may be looking at now.

The other major box Engels ticks is age. He is in exactly the right bracket. He is young enough for a top club from a top league to believe they can shape him. Engels has already played in the Bundesliga. He has already played for Celtic across a hundred games. Engels has already played in Europe and been exposed to pressure. He is a title winner with multiple trophies. That stuff matters.

A player like that does not have to be perfect to attract serious money. He only has to be credible. Engels is more than credible.

When Celtic paid big money for him, there should never have been any real doubt that there was a player there. There should never have been any real doubt that he would command an eight-figure fee when he eventually left. I said right from the start that he could leave Scotland for a Scottish record transfer fee.

I may end up slightly off with that. But he will not be miles away.

He will go for £20 million-plus if Celtic choose to sell.

If there is a proper auction, and if English money gets involved again, then he may get close to the Matt O’Riley ballpark. O’Riley’s move to Brighton was £25 million, potentially rising towards £30 million. That is the kind of territory Celtic should be thinking about if Engels continues to attract serious interest.

Some people will say that sounds preposterous. It really does not.

Celtic have already sold players for those sums. The market has already moved. The Premier League has changed the economics of everything. A young, technically capable midfielder with Bundesliga experience and European exposure is not a £10 million player in that world. Not if clubs believe there is more to come.

That is why the Van Dijk comparison always comes to mind for me when I look at Engels.

Not because Engels is Van Dijk. He clearly is not. Nobody is saying that. Van Dijk’s quality was obvious in a different way. He was a force of nature at Celtic, and anyone with eyes could see he was heading for a much bigger stage.

The comparison is not about quality. It is about development logic.

Van Dijk’s value was not only what he was at Celtic. It was what clubs could see he might become once he was placed inside the right environment. The tools were there. The frame was there. Anyone could see that the technical level was there. The composure was there. The ceiling was obvious.

With Engels, the same principle applies, even if the level is different.

Clubs are not buying only what he is today.

They are buying the belief that, in two or three years, he could be worth considerably more than he is now.

That is how the modern market works.

Celtic should understand that better than anyone. We have built too much of our recent financial success on identifying players before the rest of the market fully catches up. O’Riley. Jota. Dembélé. Edouard. Kühn. All different players, all different stories, but each one part of the same basic model.

Buy well. Develop well. Sell when the number is right. Engels belongs in that conversation, not because he has already reached their level of performance, but because he has the same sort of market logic attached to him.

That is why Celtic should not be panicked by the Lazio story. They should not be shocked by it either. This is what happens when you buy the right kind of player. Clubs notice. Scouts watch. Agents talk. Recruitment departments build lists. Interest gathers.

The only question is whether Celtic want to do business when the offers come.

If Lazio are serious, fine. If Forest come back, don’t be shocked. There might be other clubs, from Germany or Italy, who join the queue.

But Celtic should not undersell Engels because sections of our own support have been determined to misunderstand him from the beginning. The fee paid for Engels was not the scandal. The scandal would be failing to maximise the value of the asset.

Celtic did not buy a finished superstar. We bought a player with the traits top clubs want, and we bought him young. We bought him with experience. He was bought from a serious league. They bought him because the upside was obvious.

Forest saw it. Lazio appear to see it.

It would be nice if some of our own supporters finally saw it too.

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