A TRANSFER you may have missed this week was the £11m acquisition by Everton of Ademola Lookman from Charlton Athletic.

In case you are wondering how the old Addicks are getting on these days, they sit mid-table in the third tier of English football. The 19-year-old, unsurprisingly, is the record move for a League One player.

This comes on the back of Leicester City splashing out on Wilfred Ndidi, a six-times capped Nigerian international, who a year older than Lookman cost the English Premier League champions a whopping – and isn’t that a brilliant word - £17m to secure his services from Genk.

Last season, the defensive midfielder was voted the “third best young player in the Belgian league.”

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Our own Ross McCormack cost Fulham £11m and, only last summer, Aston Villa some £12m. Both deals were done in the Championship. Jordan Rhodes moved from Blackburn Rovers to Middlesbrough last year for a similar fee give or take a few pence.

Neither have either held down an international place. McCormack, at least, scored in the Champions League, albeit that came 11 years ago when he was at Rangers. Rhodes has played six matches in top tier football.

There are many more examples of players in England outside the Premier League, and Lookman is two stories outside the Premier League, moving for huge sums of money for really no other reason than the clubs down there have so much cash.

The lad Ndidi may have potential coming out of his ears; however, if he is so good then with the best will in the world why is he going to Leicester, a club whose time has come and gone, and why was there no real competition for him?

As for Lookman, he has yet to play 50 first-team matches and Everton paid out £7m immediately with Charlton to earn more after a certain amount of games.

Now when you take all of this into account and consider that the market down south is akin to buying London property in that a one bed former council flat in Lambeth is considered a bargain at £350,000, is it any real wonder Celtic are telling everyone – and take it from me they are – that they will only talk to a potential buyer this summer if they offer £30m for Moussa Dembele.

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If the third best young player in Belgian league is worth £17m, then how much for France’s Young Player of the Year. Double that? Triple it?

Dembele has done it in the Champions League, both qualifiers and group stages, he scored 15 league goals for Fulham last season, not bad for a teenager, and has dealt with the pressure which comes with being a Celtic player even at a time when the club have been so dominant.

And don’t give me it that Scottish is football is rubbish, etc, etc. Apparently players from nothing Championship teams are worth fortunes and nobody in England seems to have a huge problem with this.

Anyway, the level of the Championship can be summed up by the following; Joey Barton was apparently the best player in that league last season.

Celtic are playing a blinder. West Ham United might not have made a formal bid but we need to grow up about this and realise that no club has to put anything in writing to make their intentions clear.

The Parkhead club were more than happy to get the message out that £20m was way short of their valuation of a young player who, without getting too carried away, could become world class somewhere down the line.

The £30m price tag was what Liverpool paid for Georginio Wijnaldum whose one season in English football came in the previous campaign when he was part of a dreadful Newcastle United side which got rightly relegated.

To the surprise of nobody, Wijnaldum has struggled at Anfield when asked to play in the same side as players several levels above him.

Those who believe Celtic should jump at the first big bid for Dembele need to take a look at what is happening in England. The television money, which trickles down to some extent, means a deal worth £30m is the same as Celtic paying a few million on Kouassi Eboue. If it works, great, if not then it’s hardly the end of the world.

English clubs this season have stolen players from other Premier League teams, who sadly can’t haggle for too long. Oxford United got Kane Hemmings from Dundee for only £250,000. They also got Marvin Johnson from Motherwell for around £500,000.

Neither will trouble the Ballon d’Or nominations any time soon but had they moved the other way, their price would have doubled.

At least Dick Turpin wore a mask.

Celtic fans of a certain vintage still shudder at the memories of Kenny Dalglish, Charlie Nicholas, Brian McClair and Frank McAvennie leaving on the cheap. They should be happy their club has sorted itself out.

As someone who once covered the English Premier League, I know how much sneering goes on down there about our game and many will see Dembele as worthy of not much more than the £500,000 Celtic paid for him six months ago.

It’s going to be fun watching next season or the one after such views show up to be short-sighted parochialism. Indeed, £30m could even be perceived as a bargain.