Killietoseal Tshibola loan deal
KILMARNOCK last night sealed a deal to sign Aston Villa ace Aaron Tshibola.
Rugby Park boss Steve Clarke made his move to link up with the midfielder for a third spell on a loan deal.
Tshibola, 23, arrived in Ayrshire over the weekend and is set to join his new colleagues for a first training session this morning.
Clarke has monitored his situation for a month and has made a deal happen before the transfer window closes.
The Killie boss managed Tshibola at Reading and was assistant to Roberto di Matteo when Villa splashed out £5million to sign him from the Championship outfit two years ago.
But Tshibola isn’t in Steve Bruce’s plans for this season – and having returned from loan spells at MK Dons and Nottingham Forest he’s now going out again. SOMEONE had better put a call out for the odd job man at Celtic Park. The revolving door is jammed shut and there’s a striker stuck in there. A man who appears not to know if he is coming or going.
The good news where Celtic are concerned is hitman Moussa Dembele has not yet made it off the premises despite parading himself around the shop window for most of these past six months.
With Leigh Griffiths limping into the treatment room this morning for another course of rehab on his iffy calf muscle the Frenchman should be rescued from his own predicament as a matter of urgency and ushered into a room with manager Brendan Rodgers for a serious heart to heart.
Whatever has gone wrong in the relationship between this pair it is time for both of them to kiss and make up.
Dembele should be politely told he will be going nowhere in the last few days of the January sales – and reminded too he’s now in serious danger of damaging the reputation he has worked so hard to develop during his time north of the border.
This time last year there was talk of Dembele fetching as much as £30million in the open market, with clubs such as Chelsea, Liverpool, AC Milan and Bayern Munich said to be on his case.
Even Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane – who knows a thing or two about this business – was quoted as saying the youngster was indeed destined for the very top.
Well, where are they now that Dembele’s nose has been pressed up against the glass these last few weeks? That they have been nowhere to be seen since the transfer market opened its own doors should come as a timely kick up the a*** of this talented 21-year-old and a reminder too the hard yards are nowhere near finished on this journey to the summit.
Right now the truth of the matter is Dembele needs Celtic every bit as much, perhaps even more, than Celtic need him. Were it not for the recurring spasms which keep cutting Griffiths down every time he’s about to get into his stride it would be a no contest.
Some of us have been saying for months now Celtic are a slicker, more dangerous side when the Scot is leading their attack and the recent evidence in his team selections suggests Rodgers is slowly edging into that camp.
It feels as if the manger’s patience is being exhausted by Dembele who has scored only eight goals in the last 11 months. Of course, a succession of injuries have not helped along the way but even so you’d expect a better return than that from Joe Garner never mind a £30m prodigy.
And in any case these injuries should not be cited as mitigation for the Frenchman’s defence. Rather, they are