Nottingham Forest tried and tried and tried again to sign Arne Engels from Celtic but were rebuffed on each occasion
Brian Dick Reach Football Correspondent
14:46, 03 Feb 2026
Martin O'Neill, manager of Celtic
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Martin O'Neill, manager of Celtic(Image: Mark Runnacles/Shutterstock)
Martin O’Neill has praised Celtic’s directors for resisting Nottingham Forest’s attempts to sign Arne Engels.
In all Forest made three offers for the 22-year-old midfielder – with O’Neill suggesting two arrived on transfer deadline day and one before Monday.
While he didn’t confirm fees it has been reported the bids rose from around £14million, then to £17m and finally to a package that could have been worth £25m, including £5m in add-ons.
But Celtic held firm and can now look forward to having the Belgian, who has scored 15 and added 20 assists in his 89 matches with the Scottish Premiership outfit, at least for the remainder of the season.
Asked about his role in the transfer talks on a hectic deadline day he told talkSPORT the decision was taken out of his hands.
“The board turned it down. Obviously, it's arrived very, very late in the day and we had these offers coming in,” he said.
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"I actually did a press conference just after our game against Falkirk, unaware that there'd been an offer gone in. I think that the press seemed to get to know about them before the club did.
"But anyway, that's beside the point. It was very late in proceedings and the board turned them down.
“Considering the amounts of money that you're talking about, because that would be very, very big up here, that was remarkable."
Forest also tried to lure Hayden Hackney from Middlesbrough – but the Boro captain was never interested in leaving The Riverside with them going for promotion.
They were also linked with NEC Nijmegen’ s Japanese midfielder Kodai Sano. It was claimed they offered € 20m amid competition from Ajax.
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The 22-year-old joined NEC from Fagiano Okayama in the summer of 2023 since when he has played 81 times in the middle of the park. The report adds the Japanese is likely to move on in the summer.
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