The upcoming summer transfer window will be an interesting one for Celtic as they will hope to avoid losing any more of their top players ahead of next season.
Last year, Premier League side Brighton & Hove Albion swooped in to sign Matt O’Riley from the Scottish giants for a reported fee of more than £25m.
That came after the Danish magician had scored 18 goals and provided 13 assists in the Scottish Premiership during the 2023/24 campaign for Brendan Rodgers.
The Hoops now have a number of valuable assets who could be targets for other clubs in the upcoming summer transfer window, thanks to their performances this season.
Celtic's top five most valuable players
According to Transfermarkt, 27-year-old central defender Cameron Carter-Vickers, who has been linked with Bayer Leverkusen, is currently the most valuable player in the squad with a valuation of £11.9m.
Celtic’s top two scorers – Daizen Maeda (31) and Nicolas Kuhn (18) – also make the top five list. Maeda is worth £9.4m, and the German forward is the joint-second most valuable in the squad at £10.2m.
Cameron Carter-Vickers
27
£11.9m
Arne Engels
21
£10.2m
Nicolas Kuhn
25
£10.2m
Reo Hatate
27
£9.4m
Daizen Maeda
27
£9.4m
Arne Engels, who joined the club from Augsburg last summer and has scored ten goals in all competitions, also makes the top five list alongside those three and Reo Hatate.
Whilst Celtic will be happy to have so many highly-valued assets at Parkhead, the Hoops once lost a player for £0 who is now worth more than all of them in the form of Aaron Hickey.
Aaron Hickey's current market value
The Scottish defender joined the club’s academy at the age of 12 and spent four years in the set-up before joining Hearts at the age of 16, as he revealed to Brentford’s official website.
Market Movers
Football FanCast’s Market Movers series explores the changing landscape of the modern transfer market. How much is your club’s star player or biggest flop worth today?
Hickey confirmed that it was his decision to move on from Celtic, rejecting their offer of a new contract, because of his lack of game time in the academy, which meant that the Hoops ended up losing him for nothing.
The versatile full-back then went on to make his senior breakthrough at Hearts before spending two years in Italy with Bologna, between 2020 and 2022, before his big-money move to the Premier League with Brentford ahead of the 2022/23 campaign.
Brentford reportedly paid a fee of £14m for the Scottish defender and he has only played 35 matches in the Premier League to date, missing 76 games with hamstring and ankle injuries.
At the time of writing, despite his lack of football in recent seasons, Hickey is currently valued at a whopping £15.4m by Transfermarkt – even more than the fee the Bees paid for him.
The 22-year-old talent was even tipped to become even better than Kieran Tierney, who is due to rejoin Celtic this summer, and Andy Robertson by Barry Ferguson, who is currently the manager of Rangers, two years ago, as shown in the clip above.
Hickey, who was described as “amazing” by former manager Steven Naismith, has been unable to fulfill that potential so far, due to his hamstring and ankle injuries, but his significant market value points to the quality he has already shown in his short career to date.
Celtic must rue losing "exciting" gem who's now playing like a £100m star
Celtic lost the talented young attacker for a fee of just £230k and now he’s being compared to a £100m talent.
ByDan EmeryApr 15, 2025
Despite those injury problems, Celtic may regret losing him for nothing as the young dynamo has gone on to become worth even more than all of Rodgers’ current stars, including Engels, Kuhn, and Maeda.
