Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers made changes to his playing squad during the recent summer transfer window and was backed by the board.
Central midfielder Matt O’Riley was sold to Premier League side Brighton & Hove Albion and the Hoops reacted by splashing out a club-record fee of £11m on Augsburg dynamo Arne Engels.
The Northern Irish head coach also brought in Paulo Bernardo, Adam Idah, Luke McCowan, Viljami Sinisalo, Auston Trusty, and Kasper Schmeichel on permanent deals, along with Alex Valle on a season-long loan from Barcelona.
Celtic reportedly paid a fee of £8.5m, with a potential £1.5m in add-ons on top of that, to sign Idah on a permanent basis from Norwich City, after his loan spell at Parkhead last term.
The Ireland international scored eight goals in 15 appearances in the Scottish Premiership during the second half of last season, and has scored four goals in his last five games for the club in the current campaign.
His arrival in a £9.5m deal from the Canaries in the summer transfer window meant that Rodgers had him and Kyogo Furuhashi as his two first-choice centre-forward options, in a team that plays with one striker.
This left Hyeon-gyu Oh in a difficult place, sitting third in the pecking order at Parkhead, and he completed a move to Genk on a permanent deal.
Hyeon-gyu Oh's Celtic career
In January of last year, Ange Postecoglou swooped to sign the South Korea international from Suwon Bluewings for a reported fee of £2.5m to bolster his attacking options, shortly before Giorgos Giakoumakis departed for Atalanta United.
The promising youngster had scored 14 goals in 53 appearances for the K League 1 outfit, 11 of which had come in his 32 league outings during the 2022 campaign.
Oh enjoyed a promising start to life at Parkhead in the second half of that season, with seven goals in all competitions for the Australian head coach, including six goals in 16 matches in the Premiership.
Rodgers then arrvied to replace Postecoglou in the summer of 2023 and the South Korean youngster failed to break into the team on a regular basis.
He made 20 appearances and only started three times in the league for the Northern Irish head coach during the 2023/24 campaign, with Idah arriving to restrict his game time in January.
Appearances
20
Goals
5
Big chances missed
5
Big chances created
0
Assists
0
As you can see in the table above, Oh did manage to score five goals in his limited minutes on the pitch for the Hoops, but failed to offer any creativity for his teammates.
Despite his struggles for game time at Parkhead, the Scottish giants raked in a £2m profit for him in the summer just gone as Genk swooped in to pay a reported fee of £4.5m.
Things could have been very different for Celtic, though, if they had landed one of their alternative centre-forward targets during the January transfer window in 2023 – Antoine Semenyo.
Celtic's interest in Antoine Semenyo
Ahead of that window, the Bristol Post reported that Celtic and Rangers had both scouted the Bristol City forward ‘extensively’ ahead of a possible move for the young attacker.
One that got away
The transfers that nearly happened but never did. This article is part of Football FanCast's One That Got Away series.
The Ghana international’s contract with the English Championship club was due to expire at the end of the season and that meant that they had to cash in then or they risked losing him for nothing in the summer.
That seemingly alerted the two Scottish giants to his potential availability but they were not the only teams interested in snapping up for the versatile attacker.
It was claimed that Premier League side Crystal Palace and Turkish outfit Fenerbahce were also keen on signing Semenyo ahead of the second half of the season.
In the end, however, none of those four clubs were able to win the race for the Bristol City striker. Instead, Premier League team Bournemouth splashed out a whopping fee of £9m, plus a potential £1.5m in add-ons on top of that, to secure his services on the 28th January.
It is not significantly more than the fee Celtic paid for Idah this year and it is a deal that the Hoops may now regret missing out on, given his form since making the move to the top-flight.
How much Antoine Semenyo is worth now
At the time of writing (09/10/2024), Transfermarkt has his current market value at €20m (£16.7m) and this shows that the Cherries were right to invest a large sum in his potential.
The initial fee of £9m that they paid Bristol City for his services currently looks like a bargain, given his market value, form, and the plaudits he is getting.
As you can hear in the clip above, pundit Jamie Redknapp believes that Bournemouth have unearthed an “absolute star” who is “worth a fortune” at this moment in time.
Semenyo did struggle in his first five months at the Vitality Stadium, however, with a return of one goal and zero assists in his first 11 Premier League outings.
The 24-year-old attacker, who can play through the middle or out wide as a winger, then found his feet and caught the eye with his contributions in his first full season in the top-flight.
Starts
25
xG
4.64
Goals
8
Big chances created
6
Assists
2
As you can see in the table, Semenyo performed incredibly well against his xG tally, outscoring it by over three goals, and was unfortunate to end the season with two assists, from six ‘big chances’ created for his teammates.
The Ghana international has also made a strong start to the current campaign in the Premier League, with a return of three goals and two ‘big chances’ created in seven outings for the Cherries.
This means that the ex-Celtic target has recorded 11 goals and eight ‘big chances’ created in the league since the start of last season, which shows that he is more than capable at producing regular quality at that level.
Rodgers must cash in on Celtic midfielder who's played less than Palma
The Hoops do not appear to have struck gold with this particular signing.
2 ByDan EmeryOct 8, 2024
Therefore, Semenyo is one that got away for the Hoops as they missed out on a high potential Premier League star in the making and signed Oh, who failed to make a name for himself in Glasgow.