West Ham United signed midfielder Arne Engels in August 2026.

The Belgium international joined from Celtic for an undisclosed record fee paid by an EFL Championship club on a five-year contract, with an option for a further year.

A creative all-round player and set-piece specialist, Engels enjoyed two outstanding seasons in Scotland, winning back-to-back Premiership titles and having 39 direct goal involvements in exactly 100 appearances.

Capped four times by his country, Engels started his career at Club Brugge before spending 18 months starring in the German Bundesliga with Augsburg.

Career

2026/27

Signed for West Ham United on Saturday 15 August 2026 on a five-year contract, with an option for a further year, for an undisclosed record fee paid by an EFL Championship club.

Before West Ham

Born in the city of Dendermonde in the Flemish province of East Flanders in Belgium on 8 September 2003...Started his career with local club KSK Opwijk, before spending time at Eendracht Aalst and KAA Gent as a schoolboy...Joined Club Brugge’s famed youth academy at the age of 12 in 2015...Made his professional debut for Club Brugge’s reserve-team Club NXT in August 2020 in a second-tier Challenger Pro League fixture at RWDM Brussels, aged 17 years and eleven months...Registered his first assist on his second appearance in a home draw with Lommel the following weekend...Scored his first professional goal in a draw with Westerlo in March 2021 and completed his first season with 20 Challenger Pro League appearances...Scored against Manchester City, RB Leipzig and Paris Saint-Germain in the 2021/22 UEFA Youth League, where he played alongside future Norway winger Antonio Nusa and Morocco winger Chemsidine Talbi...Made an outstanding start to the 2022/23 season with Club NXT, registering two goals and six assists in 15 games and captaining the team on multiple occasions...Joined German Bundesliga club Augsburg as a 19-year-old in January 2023...Made his Bundesliga debut as a starter against Borussia Dortmund on 22 January 2023, providing an assist, then added a second assist against Bayer Leverkusen a fortnight later and two more against Wolfsburg in April...Started 18 of Augsburg’s 19 Bundesliga matches in the second half of the 2022/23 campaign, registering four assists...Engels scored his first Bundesliga goal in a home win over Wolfsburg in October 2023, and missed just two league matches all season, scoring three goals and registering five assists as Augsburg finished eleventh...Joined reigning Scottish champions Celtic for a club record fee in August 2024....Showed his ability to handle the big occasion by making his debut in a 3-0 Old Firm win over Rangers just two days after signing...Netted his first Celtic goal in a Scottish Premiership win over Heart of Midlothian in September 2024, then scored and assisted on his European competition debut in a UEFA Champions League league phase win over Slovan Bratislava, then added another assist at Borussia Dortmund and a goal in a home win over RB Leipzig...Scored nine goals and assisted five as Celtic won the Scottish Premiership title by 17 points, and also made six assists in seven ties and netted his penalty in a shootout win over Rangers in the 2025 Scottish League Cup final...Continued to star for Celtic in 2025/26 as the club won the Scottish Premiership and Scottish Cup double and reached the knockout stages of the UEFA Europa League...Scored a nerveless penalty in the final-day Scottish Premiership title decider against Heart of Midlothian at Celtic Park in May this year...Scored in the 2026 Scottish Cup final win over Dunfermline Athletic at Hampden Park to complete the double...Appeared in all eight UEFA Europa League league phase ties, making three assists and scoring in a home win over Utrecht that secured Celtic’s progress to the knockout phase play-offs...First capped by Belgium at U15 level, making his debut against an England U15 team captained by Jude Bellingham in February 2018, aged 14 years and five months...Won a total of 33 caps at U15, U16, U19 and U21 levels, scoring eight goals...Part of the Young Red Devils’ squad at the UEFA European U21 Championship finals in 2023, then started seven of his country’s eight group-stage qualifiers for the 2025 tournament...Won his first senior cap for Belgium as a substitute in a 3-1 UEFA Nations League win over Israel in Debrecen, Hungary, on 6 September 2024, two days before his 21st birthday...Made a second substitute appearance for Belgium at home to France the following month...Made his first two starts for Belgium in Nations League ties at home to Italy and away to Israel in November 2024.

Honours

Club Honours

Celtic

Scottish Premiership (2024/25, 2025/26) Scottish Cup (2026) Scottish League Cup (2025)