Rodgers has no complaints about Dembele’s focus amid transfer talk
BRENDAN Rodgers has stressed that Moussa Dembele is “fully committed” to Celtic and that the club have no interest in selling the striker.
The 21-year-old Frenchman has sat on the bench for the last two matches after Rodgers conceded that he had been affected by speculation.
Dembele (right), who signed from Fulham in 2016, has been linked with Crystal Palace and Brighton but, ahead of tomorrow’s visit of Hibernian in the Ladbrokes Premiership, manager Rodgers moved to dispel the uncertainty surrounding the player.
“Moussa has never once asked to leave Celtic,” he said. “We brought him here as a talented young player at 19 and he has shown that talent.
“He has come in with a plan: his agent, himself and I know what the plan was but he has never asked once to leave. “He is fully committed to Celtic. We have had one official bid for him that is nowhere near the value of what the value of Moussa is. But equal to that, we have no interest in selling him.
“He is not a player for sale, he has two-and-a-half years left on his contract.
“He has trained, he is working well, is working hard and he is available. That’s as clear as I can be. In defence of the player, because it is important for supporters to understand, this is a boy that is fully committed to Celtic.” REAL Madrid are planning a summer of “major renovation”, centred around the top target of Neymar — which will be funded by high-profile sales set to have a big impact on the Premier League.
Bernabeu sources say there has been a realisation of the need to overhaul the top end of the squad, and an awareness that the time of the BBC — Karim Benzema, Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo — has come to an end.
While president Florentino Perez did not bring in a major star in the last two summers and wanted to rectify that this year anyway, he now feels Neymar could be the signing that solves a lot of issues.
The Brazilian would be both the massive name the president craves, but also young enough to be the player that represents a new era.
There is also an unusual confidence around the Bernabeu that it can be pulled off, despite Paris Saint-Germain’s expected refusal.
The main issue beyond convincing the French club is that Real are just not as financially powerful in the modern market as they were a few years ago and would likely need to raise around £500m for such a deal in terms of fee and wages.
It says much that Ronaldo, for the first time since arriving at the club in 2009, is not “unsellable”. While Manchester United do not now have interest in their old hero, they are for example monitoring the situations of Raphael Varane, Casemiro and Toni Kroos.
Other potential targets for Real are Harry Kane, Eden Hazard as well as one of the two goalkeepers Thibaut Courtois or David De Gea, but all would be willingly discarded if it meant signing Neymar.