Sutton - 'I couldn't imagine Celtic selling Henrik Larsson midway through our run to Seville'. The PERFECT comparison

01/25/2025 10:01 AM

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But when you have the likes of Chris Sutton echoing everything you’ve said, then you know he sees the sense in our opinions too.

His article in the Record this morning makes perfect sense.

And for those of you out there who are saying this happened because Kyogo wanted it to happen, then you need to look a little bit deeper.

Joe already released an article on VideoCelts this morning giving his view on what Sutton said, and it was 100% an ‘unnecessary risk’.

This encouraged me to read Sutton’s article in it’s totality, and there is one point he made in it which really drives home the point that this in an ‘unnecessary risk’.

I’ve already outlined it in the headline to this article.

When you look back at 2003 and our run to the UEFA cup final, could you really imagine Celtic selling Henrik Larsson midway through that campaign?

Bearing in mind, of course, that at that point Larsson was 31, just a year older than Kyogo.

That would have made no sense then.

And that really drives home the point that selling Kyogo in the midst of this European campaign, with a huge game coming up next week, makes no sense.

Whether he wanted leave or not.

I made the point yesterday that Kyogo could have stayed until the end of the season.

Once the season was over, he could have left with more medals in his collection, and pursued his career just as he wanted to.

Chris Sutton also made that point in his article.

What were the board afraid of when it came to negotiating something like that?

I can tell you straight off the bat what they were afraid of.

Losing money.

Kyogo would have been six months older and on the wrong side of 30.

Their fear was that he might have depreciated by say, £2 million due to his age.

There is no other valid explanation for this.

Whether the player wanted it or not is irrelivant.

As Sutton quite rightly states in his article, it wasn’t his call to make.

Not while he was under contract.

The board could have said no, you can wait until the end of the season.

But they didn’t, and there has to be a reason for that.

I think we all know what that is.

It’s the £10 million question, isn’t it?

I mean, it isn’t as if Kyogo was agitating for a move, is it?

Did he strike you as someone who was trying to push a move through?

There was no indication that this was going on.

He might have stated he wanted to move at some point to further his career, but it would have suited all parties for this to have happened at the end of this season.

Granted, Rennes might be offering him more money to play for them.

And definitely, he’ll be playing at a higher level in Ligue 1.

But what he is leaving behind, in comparison to what he’s facing into?

That doesn’t make sense to me, not right now.

A relegation battle, with the very distinct possibility he might be playing second tier football in France next season.

In exchange for a chance to go further in the Champions League?

If Rennes wanted him that badly, surely they would have waited another six short months?

If Kyogo’s agent was any good, he would have stipulated that the player did not want to move unless he was assured of top flight football in France next season.

And that he wanted to wait until the end of the season to see if that was guaranteed.

The more I think about this, the more it points to the board wanting to make sure they could get the maximum out of this sale.

And if they view that as good business, then yes, from an accountants position, that’s great business.

From a footballing position, it’s not.

Sutton also pointed out that Callum McGregor stated Kyogo was a ‘happy wee guy’.

Some people are saying his body language was the give away in the run up to this.

But nobody really knows what was going on behind the scenes.

Whichever way you want to look at this, Chris Sutton has made the PERFECT comparison in all of this.

We would NOT have sold our top striker in Henrik Larsson en-route to the UEFA Cup Final.

So why are we selling our top striker now, after making it through to Champions League knock-out stages?

As Sutton said, and as we’ve all said on our podcast, this is far from finished.

Have we put our hands up and said this is our ceiling in the Champions League?

If that’s the case, it’s stinks, and it shows a serious lack of ambition within the board.

It’s not as if we needed this money badly.

We’re not exactly strapped for cash like the Ibrox side.

So no, I’m not accepting the narrative that Kyogo wanted to go right now.

It’s bullshit when you look at all of the other factors around this properly.

Plain and simple, the board wanted the maximum they could get out of this sale.

If they didn’t, then they would have laid down the law and made Kyogo stay until the end of the season.

As per his contract.

If you can’t see that, or accept that, then you’re just being naive.

Do you honestly expect me to believe that Kyogo had no ambition to progress further in the top club competition in World football?

That he wanted to swap that for a relegation battle in France?

And all for money?

Yeah, right.

Pull the other one!

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