Celtic defender Jeremie Frimpong is set to leave Parkhead for Bundesliga outfit Bayer Leverkusen in a deal which could be worth around €11m to the Glasgow side.
“We are disappointed to lose him. But he has come in for £300,000 and we could sell him for a huge amount of money but it is credit to the development of the player himself, myself and the coaches and what the club have done for him that a couple of top European clubs have shown interest in him."
Bayer Leverkusen are the team speaking to Celtic's Jeremie Frimpong. Fee could be around €10m. Leverkusen building for the future with Lars Bender retiring in the summer. They already added Timothy Fosu-Mensah at RB this window. #B04 #CelticFC https://t.co/MBy9gQhBGZ
— Ronan Murphy (@swearimnotpaul) January 26, 2021
Frimpong joined the Hoops from Manchester City for a fee in the region of £300k. Since joining Celtic in 2019, Frimpong has made 46 appearance, scoring three goals in the process.
Neil Lennon wouldn't be drawn on which team the Netherlands under 20 international was linked with, but did confirm that he was abroad speaking to a club.
“Jeremie is abroad at the minute speaking to a club. That deal looks like it may go through.
“The club have made great strides to renegotiate with Jeremie and his representatives but the player made it clear to me, to the board, that he wanted to leave.
“I wouldn’t say he was unhappy, just ambitious maybe or he wanted to try something else to progress his career at another club.
“We got a really robust offer from a club for Jeremie and the club felt it was good business. We do as well from a football side of things and when the player makes it clear he would prefer to play his football elsewhere, that was a decision we all agreed to take.
“That’s football sometimes, when a player makes it clear that he would prefer to go elsewhere then you have to look at it and think is this the right thing to do, is this the right sort of deal for us and ticks all the boxes really.
Regarding speculation surrounding other first team players, Lennon stated that he doesn't envision any other players leaving Parkhead in the January transfer window.
“Negotiations are ongoing at the minute and will see how that pans out, but I don’t envisage anyone else going out the door.
“We are obviously disappointed, we did everything we could to try and entice the player to stay but he made it clear quite a while ago that his ambition was to leave.”
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