‘Significant amount’: Reported Celtic target won’t come cheap; was compared to Aston Villa star

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Exeter City manager Matt Taylor says Celtic target Joel Randall will not be leaving the League Two club unless someone is willing to pay a ‘significant amount of money’ for the highly-rated winger, as he told Devon Live.

On a weekend in which a former Grecians starlet netted his ninth Premier League goal of the season, justifying his £28 million price-tag with an all-action performance in Aston Villa’s 2-0 win over Newcastle United, another player who has made his name on the South Coast continues to attract plenty of interest.

Celtic and Swansea City have both made failed attempts to land Randall this month, while Charlton Athletic’s £300,000 bid fell well short of Exeter’s valuation – believed to be around £1 million (Mail).

Randall has produced eight goals and six assists for the League Two outfit during 2020/21.

And, as Taylor points out, those numbers are better than the ones produced by a certain Ollie Watkins’ during his breakthrough season at St James’ Park.

“Joel is still our player and I expect him to be our player at the end of the window,” Taylor explained

“There has been interest but we have a certain valuation for Joel and one that reflects what we has done this season and what he will do in the future as we know he will be a top, top, player. I expect him to be our player unless something very worthwhile comes in.

“Unless someone comes in with an offer we take seriously or is a significant offer, then we expect him to be our player.

“How long we can keep him within our ranks will depend on what happens this season and how the season ends, as we expect him to be a high calibre player and if he does leave us, it will be for a significant amount of money.

“His stats are better than Ollie’s at this stage which shows just how highly we rate him. I am not going to say he’ll go on to play at the top level like Ollie but he has certainly got the potential to do so, and so the valuation has to be similar to what we got for Ollie.”

Exeter sold Watkins to Brentford for £1.5 million in 2017 after he was named the EFL’s Young Player of the Season. You’d imagine that it would take a similar fee to snap up Randall, four years on.