Celtic Let Him Slip Away for £5m — Now Sondre Ørjasæter Is No.1 in the World

Celtic supporters could be forgiven for looking at Sondre Ørjasæter’s progress at FC Twente and asking one very simple question.

How did Celtic let this happen?

The Norwegian winger was firmly on Celtic’s radar before eventually leaving Sarpsborg for FC Twente in the summer of 2025 for a fee reported at around £5million.

Celtic knew about him. They wanted him. The interest was serious.

Yet another club got the deal done.

Now a new statistic makes Celtic’s failure to land him look even more painful.

Ørjasæter Is Now No.1

According to figures published by the CIES Football Observatory, Ørjasæter leads its ranking of U23 wingers for progressive carries in the opposition half.

His figure stands at an extraordinary 6.36 per 90 minutes.

The same ranking contains Barcelona superstar Lamine Yamal and another former Celtic target, Carlos Forbs.

Think about that.

Celtic identified a young winger who has subsequently developed into one of Europe’s most exciting ball carriers.

But he isn’t playing at Celtic Park.

He’s playing for FC Twente.

Celtic Identified Him — But Couldn’t Finish the Deal

This is what makes the story so frustrating.

There would be considerably less criticism if Ørjasæter had simply appeared from nowhere.

He didn’t.

Celtic had been tracking him and the player himself subsequently confirmed that the interest became serious.

However, Ørjasæter said the asking price was an issue and also questioned whether Scottish football represented the best environment for his style and development.

That should concern Celtic just as much as the transfer fee.

Why could FC Twente convince a talented young player that the Eredivisie represented the right place for his development while Celtic couldn’t convince him that Glasgow did?

That is a question the people responsible for Celtic’s recruitment strategy should be asking themselves.

Look At What Happened Next

Ørjasæter hasn’t disappeared after leaving Norway.

Quite the opposite.

FC Twente recently extended his contract until 2030 and described him as an important player whose creativity and dribbling are crucial to their attacking football.

Dutch reports also claimed Twente knocked back interest this summer involving a potential fee of around €20million.

The club reportedly paid approximately €5million for him only a year earlier.

That is precisely the player-trading model Celtic continually tell supporters they want to operate.

Identify talent early. Develop it. Improve the player. Then potentially generate an enormous return.

Someone else appears to have done it instead.

This Is About More Than One Transfer

No recruitment department signs every target.

Players reject clubs. Negotiations collapse. Valuations differ.

That’s football.

But Celtic’s recruitment cannot be examined in isolation from the wider picture.

The club’s recently published accounts confirmed £66.4million in year-end cash.

Celtic also admitted that mistakes had been made during a turbulent period for the club.

That makes stories such as Ørjasæter increasingly difficult to shrug off.

This isn’t a club desperately searching behind the sofa for enough money to compete.

Celtic have resources.

The bigger question is how effectively those resources are being used.

Celtic Need To Learn From This

There is an uncomfortable irony here.

Celtic apparently did one of the hardest parts correctly.

They identified Ørjasæter before his value potentially exploded.

Then they failed to secure him.

Today he is 22 years old, playing in the Eredivisie and sitting above every other U23 winger in CIES’ ranking for this particular ball-carrying metric.

Meanwhile, Celtic supporters continue debating whether the squad has enough creativity and quality in wide areas.

That doesn’t automatically mean Ørjasæter would have produced identical performances in Scotland.

Nobody can know that.

But Celtic had the player in their sights.

FC Twente got him.

And little more than a year later, the decision looks increasingly painful.

Celtic cannot keep identifying potentially excellent players only to watch somebody else turn that potential into performance and value.

At some point, recruitment has to be judged not by the names on a scouting list but by the players actually walking through the door at Celtic Park.