At least a couple of Celtic’s want away players will come to regret going.

As we are all painfully aware, there are a number of players being linked with moves out of Celtic right now, and we have discussed most of them over the last few days.

Arne Engels. Daizen Maeda. Reo Hatate. Those are the obvious ones. Then there is talk that Benjamin Nygren could be added to the list, and even Callum McGregor’s name has started to drift into conversations none of us particularly want to have.

If all of that comes to pass, then Celtic are not looking at a normal summer anymore.

They are looking at a squad being ripped apart.

But there is another side to this, and it is one worth saying plainly. If some of these players do leave Celtic this summer, at least a few of them may be in for the shock of their lives.

Because the grass is not always greener elsewhere. Sometimes it is just different grass. Sometimes it is harder ground. Sometimes you discover that the club you left was not holding you back at all. It was actually giving you the platform and environment that made you look like the player others wanted to buy.

That is the part footballers sometimes forget.

Of the five players being talked about, I think two could walk into almost any team and be just fine. And when I say that, I do not only mean England. I mean almost anywhere in Europe.

Callum McGregor is one of them.

Arne Engels is the other.

McGregor is still one of the most intelligent footballers this club has had in the modern era. His legs may not be what they were at 24, but his brain is still elite. His understanding of tempo, space, shape and responsibility is extraordinary. Put him into a serious side with serious structure around him and he would adapt quickly. Good players usually do. Great football minds almost always do.

Engels is different, but the same broad point applies. He is young, technically gifted, physically capable and still nowhere near his ceiling. He has the raw materials clubs everywhere want. If Celtic lose him, he will not be short of serious offers. He is exactly the sort of player another club will convince itself it can polish into something even better.

Those two have little to be concerned about in that sense.

They are not guaranteed to thrive, because nobody is guaranteed anything in football. But they have the skill sets to survive almost anywhere.

The others? That is where it gets more complicated.

Daizen Maeda is a wonderful Celtic player. I do not think anyone should pretend otherwise. His running, pressing, chaos, work-rate and selflessness have been enormous for us. He has scored huge goals. He has changed games through effort alone.

He has terrified defenders who wanted an easy afternoon and instead found themselves being chased like they owed him money.

But Maeda belongs to a very specific kind of football.

He thrives in a system that values pressing, transition, intensity and constant movement. He is at his best when his physical gifts are not just tolerated, but weaponised. He needs a team that understands what he gives them. He needs a manager who knows that his chaos is not a flaw, but part of the design.

If he finds that, he may do very well. If he does not, he could struggle badly.

The Premier League is not simply a place where Celtic players go and automatically become bigger versions of themselves. It is ruthless. It is tactical. It is athletic. It is full of teams with very specific requirements. If Maeda joins the wrong club, under the wrong manager, in the wrong structure, he may discover very quickly that what made him valuable at Celtic is not automatically valued in the same way elsewhere.

That is not a criticism of him. It is a warning about fit.

Football is full of good players who made the wrong move at the wrong time to the wrong club. Maeda has been excellent for Celtic because Celtic gave him the stage on which his strengths mattered. The next club has to do the same, or the move could become far more difficult than he imagines.

Reo Hatate is another matter. On talent alone, Hatate should be playing at a very high level. We have all seen it. We have all watched those games where he looks like the most graceful player on the pitch, drifting into pockets, taking the ball under pressure, sliding passes through tiny gaps and making football look beautifully simple.

But we have also seen the other version.

The loose passes. The casual moments. The games that pass him by. The lack of consistency. The injuries. The spells where he looks like a player waiting for rhythm that never quite arrives. If Hatate leaves Celtic believing he is walking into guaranteed first-team football somewhere bigger, he may be in for a brutal education.

At Celtic, his talent has bought him time. Supporters have been frustrated by him, but they have also been patient because they know what he can do. Managers have gone back to him because his ceiling is obvious.

Elsewhere, that patience may not exist.

At another club, especially in a stronger league, possibilities and opportunities may be rarer than they are at Celtic Park under Martin O’Neill. A couple of loose performances. A couple of weeks out of the side. A new signing in his position. Suddenly the move that was supposed to elevate his career becomes a fight just to get minutes. Hatate has the ability to succeed elsewhere. But he will have to seriously raise his game.

Then there is Benjamin Nygren.

This is the one where I think reality may hit hardest. Nygren had a productive season for Celtic, and nobody should rewrite that. He scored goals. He contributed. He had important moments. But has he entirely convinced the support?

I do not think he has.

Has he shown enough to make major clubs across Europe think he is an automatic starter for them?

Again, I am not convinced.

His World Cup did not exactly help matters either. The coverage back home in Sweden was not glowing, and his performance against the Netherlands drew criticism.

That does not mean he is a bad player. It does not even mean he had a bad tournament overall. But it does suggest that anyone imagining a queue of elite clubs waiting to build around him may be getting carried away.

Nygren may find that the offers are not what he imagines. He may find that the clubs interested in him are not bigger than Celtic. He may find that the money is not as life-changing as people assume.

And he may find that leaving Celtic does not mean walking into a team every week somewhere else. It might mean becoming one more option in one more squad, at one more club that does not feel anything like Paradise when things are not going well.

That is what players sometimes underestimate about this place.

Celtic is a pressure cooker, yes. It demands everything. It can be exhausting. The scrutiny is relentless. Every draw feels like a defeat and every defeat feels like a public inquiry.

But Celtic also gives players something.

It gives them a stage. It gives them European football. It gives them trophies. It gives them full stadiums. It gives them meaning. It gives them supporters who can turn good players into heroes if they show enough heart, enough quality and enough commitment.

Not every club offers that. Some clubs offer more money and less soul. Some offer a better league and a worse life. Some offer a bigger television deal and a smaller place in the story.

If these players want examples of how quickly things can look different after leaving Celtic, they do not need to look far. They only need to look at Kyogo and Nicolas Kühn.

Kyogo left Celtic thinking, as many players do, that the next step would be bigger and better. Instead, his time after Celtic has been complicated. He has dealt with injury, uncertainty and questions over his place. Even now, as he tries to rebuild momentum, it is clear that leaving Celtic did not instantly turn into the glorious next chapter some assumed it would.

And Kyogo is a far better Celtic player than some of those now eyeing the exit.

That should make people think.

Nicolas Kühn is another cautionary tale. He left for good money and went to Como in Serie A, which sounded like a glamorous move. Italy. Big league. Big fee. A fresh challenge. On paper, it looked like the kind of transfer players dream about.

But football is not played on paper.

His first season there did not make him an untouchable star. The numbers were not spectacular. The minutes were not always what he would have wanted. Now there are already reports suggesting his future may be uncertain.

That is how fast football moves. One year you are a star at Celtic. The next, you are trying to prove you still belong somewhere else.

That is why these players need to be very careful.

Nobody should begrudge ambition. I certainly do not. Football careers are short. Players are entitled to chase money, bigger leagues, new experiences and personal dreams. Celtic are not entitled to keep anyone simply because we want them to stay.

But players should also understand what they are leaving.

They should understand that being wanted by another club is not the same as being central to another club. They should understand that a transfer fee is not a promise of happiness. They should understand that Celtic can make players look bigger because the stage is big, the expectations are enormous and the emotional connection is real.

Some players flourish when they leave. Others discover that Celtic was the best thing that ever happened to them.

That is the question facing Maeda, Hatate and Nygren in particular.

Are they leaving for something better? Or are they leaving because the idea of something better has seduced them? There is a difference.

Maeda may find the right Premier League club and thrive in exactly the right system. Hatate may move to a league that suits him, sharpen his game and finally become the consistent player we always thought he could be. Nygren may surprise everyone and land somewhere perfect for him. All of that is possible.

But the opposite is possible too.

Maeda could become a tactical misfit. Hatate could become an unused luxury. Nygren could become a squad player at a club smaller than the one he left.

Celtic are not just any club. This is not some stepping-stone that players should treat casually. For some, it is the biggest club they will ever play for. For others, it is the best environment they will ever have. For a few, it may be the one place where everything about them made sense.

Callum McGregor knows that. He has lived it. He understands what Celtic is because Celtic has been the centre of his career. He would succeed elsewhere because his football intelligence is too great not to travel.

But he also knows what he would be leaving behind.

Engels may have a different calculation. He is young enough, talented enough and ambitious enough to believe the world is opening in front of him. Fair enough. He may be right.

But for the others, there should be a pause before the jump.

And if this summer becomes the mass departure some fear it might, then a few players may soon discover that the thing they were trying to escape was not holding them back at all. It was as good as it gets.

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