Jeremie Frimpong’s departure from Celtic came completely out of the blue. Names like Odsonne Edouard and Ryan Christie have been linked with moves away from Parkhead for quite some time now but the club did not waste any time in sanctioning the Dutchman’s move to Bayer Leverkusen, which reportedly cost the Bundesliga giants £10 million.
While Frimpong was one of the biggest parts of Neil Lennon’s squad, it is not hard to see why the Hoops decided to let him go. It was a massive profit on the £300,000 that the club had paid Manchester City for the youngster just a couple of summers ago.
It did leave a huge void in the squad though, which was filled with a loan move for Everton’s Jonjoe Kenny till the end of the season.
There does not appear to be an option to buy in the deal though and Carlo Ancelotti seems adamant that the right-back will be returning to the Merseyside club at the end of the campaign. As reported by Liverpool Echo, the Everton manager said:
"“He had experience in Schalke where he did really well. He came back and didn’t find the space or the opportunities to play a lot.“So we decided to give the opportunity to play for six months to see what happens and he will be back in the summer.”"
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Jonjoe Kenny appears to be a stopgap signing for Celtic
It looks like this is a stopgap signing on the end of Celtic. Kenny had done very well while away on Schalke last season and many fans would have been hoping that the club could sign him on a permanent basis if he did prove himself in Scottish football.
It does look like that will be difficult to pull off. Yes, there is still a chance that the club could go ahead and sign him if they are sufficiently impressed with the right-back. But the absence of an option to buy in the deal means that Everton hold all the cards in any possible future deal.
It is believed that they rate Kenny at around £10 million which is the reason why a rumoured move to Burnley did not go through. If that is the case, then there is very little hope that Celtic will shatter their transfer record to sign the right-back.