Rodgers hit gold on “intelligent” Celtic star who’s worth more than Clark

While there are clear weaknesses in the current Celtic squad, Brendan Rodgers has a plethora of fantastic central midfield options.

As a result, club-record signing Arne Engels has started just three Premiership or European matches so far this season, while Paulo Bernardo has seen a miserly 185 minutes of action across all competitions.

Thus, it came as a surprise this week that Celtic are reportedly interested in spending big on a new midfielder, especially considering they struck gold by recruiting one new star whose estimated market value is even higher.

Latest on Celtic’s interest in Bobby Clark

According to a report earlier this week, midfielder Bobby Clark is set to join Celtic for around £6m in January.

Should this come to fruition, he would become one of the most expensive signings in the club’s history, so who is he, and would he be worth the investment?

Well, after spells with Birmingham City and Newcastle, Clark joined Liverpool for £1.5m as a 16-year-old, making 14 appearances for the Reds’ first-team, scoring his first senior goal during a Europa League demolition of Sparta Prague at Anfield.

He also came off the bench during the 2024 EFL Cup triumph over Chelsea at Wembley, seeing 42 minutes of action, underlining that he was certainly highly-rated by Jürgen Klopp.

However, following the arrival of Arne Slot on Merseyside, he was sold to RB Salzburg for a whopping £10m, plus a 17.5% sell-on clause, following Klopp’s former assistant Pepijn Lijnders to Austria.

Well, this move to Wals-Siezenheim did not work out for either the player nor coach, with Lijnders sacked after less than 30 matches in charge, while Clark made just 25 appearances for the Red Bulls, his solitary goal coming against Austria Klagenfurt.

Now though, Clark is currently on loan at Derby County, a key figure in John Eustace’s team, starting five of the Rams’ last six EFL Championship fixtures, scoring his first goal for the club during a Carabao Cup victory at Burnley last month.

Still only 20 years old, he remains a player with plenty of potential, certainly highly-rated by Jacek Kulig of Football Talent Scout who praises his “amazing technical quality”, labelling him a “roaming playmaker”.

However, this does not necessarily mean he would be a smart addition for Celtic, given their aforementioned array of options for the midfield positions, as well as the fact that that they just signed an even bigger talent.

The Celtic star worth even more than Bobby Clark

While plenty of Celtic’s summer signings have either been underwhelming or were left too late, the £1.7m paid to secure the signature of Benjamin Nygren back in June appears to be an absolute stroke of genius.

As the table below highlights, he has been, arguably, the Hoops’ best player so far this season.

As the table documents, Nygren ranks first for pretty much every attacking metric we could find among Celtic players this season, scoring four goals while also providing more assists than anybody else, as well as creating the most big chances, key passes and shot-creating actions.

The 24-year-old has been labelled “intelligent”, while Rodgers praised Nygren’s “excellent” performance following August’s victory at Aberdeen, in which he scored his first goal for the club.

He has instantaneously made himself a first-choice member of Rodgers’ team, starting all four European fixtures, as well as the first five Premiership matches, keeping the aforementioned Engels and Bernardo in reserve.

At 24 years old, Nygren has now made 195 senior club appearances, 107 of which came for previous club Nordsjælland, scoring 35 times for the Danish Superligaen side, including bagging a hat-trick against Fenerbahçe in the Conference League.

His time at Farum also caught the attention of recently sacked Sweden manager Jon Dahl Tomasson, earning his first six senior international caps throughout 2025, scoring his first Blågult goal against Northern Ireland in Stockholm in March; not a bad way to mark your first-ever start for your country.

All of this has led to Football Transfers estimating that Nygren’s current market value is around £6m, 3.5 times more than Celtic paid for him, a value that is only set to increase.

For comparison, Clark has just 49 senior appearances to his name, and is valued at only £4.86m, around £1m less than RB Salzburg’s reported valuation.

Thus, given that plenty of other positions in the Celtic squad, most notably centre-forward, could do with some serious investment in January, the reported move for Clark makes little sense, with resources better served being allocated elsewhere.