Ryan Christie has told Football Scotland he knew he wanted to leave Celtic a while before completing a transfer to Bournemouth and rejecting bigger contractual offers last summer.
The Bhoys sold Christie to the Cherries on August’s deadline day for £2.5m to avoid his free exit this year. The midfielder had less than 12-months remaining on his Parkhead terms and would have been free to negotiate pre-contracts from January after snubbing a new deal.
Bournemouth beat Premier League interest to complete their last-ditch raid on Glasgow as Burnley also wanted Christie, per Sky Sports. Celtic spoke with both sides before accepting the Championship side’s offer for their 2015 signing, who played 151 games for the Hoops.
Christie had offered Celtic a creative threat from midfield during his six-years at Parkhead. The 26-cap Scotland international hit home 41 goals and offered 44 assists in green-and-white across all competitions. He has so far scored twice and assisted six for the Cherries.
The Inverness-born maestro swiftly forged a vital role in Scott Parkers’ promotion-chasing side. He has started 23 of his 24 Championship appearances from 26 available matches so far. Christie has missed their last two games whilst recovering from a quadriceps injury.
Christie claims he ‘went against’ bigger contracts to seal Celtic exit
Christie has no regrets over his decision to quit Celtic and complete a last-gasp transfer to Bournemouth last summer. He felt long in advance of leaving Parkhead that it was time to take on a new challenge. But the wages on offer on the south coast was not the key factor.
“I’d known in my head for a while that I was at a point in my career where I wanted to try something different. Being in Scotland for so long,” Christie said. “There were moves on the table which would have been more financially beneficial, which I went against.
“That proves in my mind that it wasn’t like that. When I moved, within a few weeks I felt I’d made the right move and I’ve loved it ever since. The people closest to me knew, I speak to them so often, that through that period there were a lot of decisions to be made.”
According to Salary Sport, Christie earned £12k-a-week during his final year at Celtic and now earns £23k-a/w at Bournemouth. The contract makes him the Cherries’ 10th top-earner and would have placed him 20th in Burnley’s wage bill had he moved to Turf Moor.
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