Celtic rejected £115m star in the making for £1m, Turnbull arrived instead

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers was able to make further changes to his playing squad in the recent summer transfer window, which officially slammed shut last month.

It was his second summer in charge of the Hoops, during his second stint in Glasgow, and the board backed him in the transfer market with a number of signings.

Adam Idah, Paulo Bernardo, Alex Valle, Kasper Schmeichel, Viljami Sinisalo, Luke McCowan, Arne Engels, and Auston Trusty were all brought in by the Scottish giants.

They did, however, lose star midfielder Matt O’Riley. The Denmark international completed a move to Premier League side Brighton & Hove Albion for a reported fee of more than £25m.

Rodgers also cashed in on some of the fringe players in his squad. Mikey Johnston, Sead Haksabanovic, Hyeon-gyu Oh, and Tomoki Iwata were all allowed to leave on permanent deals to make room for new additions.

That came after the Hoops boss had been able to ditch David Turnbull, Liel Abada, and Yosuke Ideguchi on permanent deals during the January transfer window.

David Turnbull’s time with Celtic

In the summer of 2020, Celtic swooped to sign the attacking midfielder from Motherwell in a deal that was reportedly worth up to £3.25m – a record fee for their Scottish Premiership rivals.

The Bhoys wanted to sign the Scottish youngster in the summer of 2019 but it was revealed that he needed to have surgery on a knee injury, which ended up restricting him to two appearances in the 2019/20 campaign, and they came back the following year to finally complete a deal.

Turnbull hit the ground running at Parkhead with a return of eight goals and seven assists from central midfield in 31 Premiership appearances for Celtic during the 2020/21 season.

However, Ange Postecoglou arrived at the club in the summer of 2021 and the Australian’s 4-3-3 system limited the Scotland international’s involvement.

In the manager’s two seasons with Celtic, Turnbull only started 26 Premiership matches – four fewer than he managed in his debut campaign with the Scottish giants.

Rodgers replaced Postecoglou in the dugout in the summer of 2023 but the Northern Irish head coach’s arrival did not result in regular starts for the midfielder.