Celtic head coach Brendan Rodgers has shown a willingness to offer academy players an opportunity to shine during the 2023/24 campaign so far.
Daniel Kelly and Rocco Vata, who have both scored for the senior side this season, have been given chances to showcase their quality in the first-team.
Not every talented youth player gets that chance, or feels that they will get that chance, though, and that was the case with former academy gem Aaron Hickey, who left for nothing and has since gone on to forge a fantastic career for himself.
The Scottish defender is now playing Premier League football and has a higher current market value than Danish Celtic star Matt O’Riley at the time of writing (05/04/2024), which shows that the club had a howler with him.
Why Aaron Hickey left Celtic
Per the man himself, Hickey spent four years in the Celtic academy, having joined from Hearts as a kid, and was then offered a professional contract by the club.
However, the versatile full-back claimed that he was not playing much within the youth team setup and that convinced him to look for a move elsewhere due to his limited opportunites in Glasgow, which is when a return to Hearts materialised.
He made the free transfer move to the Jam Tarts in the summer of 2018 and went on to make three first-team appearances for the club during the 2018/19 campaign.
| 9/20 Premiership | Aaron Hickey |
| Appearances | 22 |
| Starts | 22 |
| Goals | 1 |
| Yellow cards | 5 |
| Red cards | 1 |
As you can see in the table above, Hickey played his first spell of regular football in the Scottish Premiership during the 2019/20 campaign and that earned him a transfer to Serie A side Bologna in the summer of 2020.
He spent two years in Italy – scoring five goals in 48 appearances for the club – before his switch to Premier League side Brentford ahead of the 2022/23 season.
How much Aaron Hickey is worth now
As per Transfermarkt, the 21-year-old starlet is currently worth a staggering €30m (£25.7m), having been signed by the Bees for a reported £14m almost two years ago.
Meanwhile, O’Riley, who has produced an eye-catching 12 goals and 16 assists in 40 appearances in all competitions for the Hoops this season, is valued at €13m (£11.2m) by Transfermarkt.
This means that the Brentford star is currently worth more than twice as much as the Denmark international, who was the subject of a £10m bid from Leeds United last summer.
Hickey, who has been described as a “future star” by scout Jacek Kulig, has only played nine times in the Premier League this season, having missed 23 games with a hamstring injury, but did feature in 26 top-flight matches last term.
The Scotland international showcased his physicality at right-back with a duel success rate of 55% in those clashes, which shows that he won the majority of his battles at the back.
Ultimately, Hickey is a highly-valuable – given his market value in comparison to one of Celtic’s star performers – asset who still has plenty of time to grow and develop, at the age of 21.
The Hoops, therefore, had a howler with the talented youngster as their academy coaches seemingly did not see his potential during his time at Parkhead, given that he decided to leave due to a lack of game time at youth level.
Those coaches may now look back on that with regret, as Celtic missed out on a terrific player who could have been a big asset for the Scottish giants.
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