The Olivier Ntcham story is probably one of the, I want to say weirdest, but I’ll go with strangest ends to a Celtic players career I have seen. For three reasons.
The first being, of course, that he was let go for free. A player that cost £4.5m from Manchester City was let go for absolutely nothing. In a move that goes against all the Celtic board’s principles, they took a £4.5m hit for a player that simply did not want to be there.
Secondly, he was once touted for a £13m move no less than three seasons ago. Celtic were said to have knocked back a £13m offer for the French enigma back in August 2018 when he was at the height of his powers and it seemed that he could do no wrong.
He was once touted as the player to take over from legendary captain Scott Brown at one point should he have hung up his boots at the time the French midfielder was bossing Scottish football.
Thirdly how can a player that offered so much, fail to deliver in such a short space of time? Ntcham went from being one of the best midfielders in the country to warming Celtic’s bench in a matter of months. Hell, even when he got his loan move, it cost his new clubs manager, Andres Villas Boas his job!
But, the fact he was let go for free shows the power of Ange Postecoglou and the board’s willingness to back their manager.
Clearly, Ntcham wanted to leave but due to his lack of game time, there wasn’t many clubs willing to pay a fee for his services and with only one year left on his £14,000 per week contract, according to Welsh media outlet Wales Online, the board decided to cut their losses to free up the wage bill for Postecoglou.
In an interview with The Daily Records Steven Mair, the Glasgow based journalist said of why Nthcam was let go on a free, “As you know, Celtic have a new manager in Ange Postecoglou.
“And there’s always the typical ‘clean slate’ stuff when a new boss comes in, but it seemed Ntcham was desperate to go and knowing Ange needed every inch of the wage budget Celtic seemed happy to oblige.
“The first noises of a move this summer came from Greece and Turkey – AEK Athens seemed close but in the end didn’t fancy paying a fee. I think in the end it was just decided everyone should cut their losses.