Rodgers: Dembele can take Drogba lead en route to top
Striker’s City show will have alerted giants, warns manager
BRENDAN RODGERS has insisted Moussa Dembele is on track to become as great a centre-forward as Didier Drogba and was adamant the Frenchman would not be leaving Celtic in the near future.
The Celtic manager even remarked that £15m “wouldn’t buy his left toe” after the Frenchman produced the performance of his life in the 3-3 draw with Manchester City in the Champions League when he scored twice and ran ragged one of world football’s most expensive defences.
History informs the Celtic support that it stands to reason richer clubs from south of the border would have noticed Dembele’s display and will keep a close eye on him knowing they have the funds to meet whatever the Glasgow club’s demands would be.
Rodgers has no doubt he has a player destined for the top – the Drogba reference was far from a throwaway line – and while he is realistic about how the transfer market works, believes the former Fulham player is going nowhere any time soon.
Asked if Dembele could become a top class player, Rodgers said: “Yeah, there’s no doubt. I worked with Didier Drogba at Chelsea and I think he’s of that ilk.
“Moussa is still young. Didier came into Chelsea at 24 or something like that. This boy’s just turned 20. He’s still a baby. But he’s tough. You can see on nights such as Wednesday that he is a big reference for the team.
“Didier went on to do great things in his career. This boy is just starting out, has made brave steps and was a brave boy to move away from Paris at 14 to London. He could have stayed there in the Championship but he wanted a new thing, he wanted to develop.
“He also he wanted to become a winner. They wanted to know where he would be best suited and they felt this was the best place. It is very early for him – we are not even in October yet – but he has made a great start.
“He has a belief. I think he said he wanted to be the world’s best player when he came in and so we shall see. He is making nice strides, isn’t he? There is still a way to go for him. I think he is a boy who can get to the top but there are some things to work upon yet.
“Is he worth £15m? That’s his left toe. His value is what someone will pay for him. If he can show up like that in the big games, that’s your value.”
Dembele is bound to attract interest. Celtic can do nothing about that but the club has absolutely no need to place a for sale sign on any of the players they want to keep.
Rodgers believes the Parisian is at the best place to develop as a footballer and his first few months at Celtic reinforce this belief. “If I look at my history as a coach – without being arrogant – I develop players who naturally move on, but the focus is always on the collective,” said Rodgers.
“The great thing about Moussa’s situation is that there was a strategy behind him coming here in the beginning and that was through the cleverness of his agent and the responsibility and maturity of the player to know that he could go to other big clubs – and you can see why he would go – but, as a boy just turned 20, to perform like that against a top team shows you the potential that is there.
“But he knows that to maximise his potential he needs to learn, he needs to develop, he needs to develop his runs, his set-up play and tactical idea of the game. He knows his journey. He knows where he’s at and he knows that, in two or three years’ time, if he develops how he can, or how we think he can, the market is there.”
Dembele could have moved elsewhere, Tottenham and even Barcelona were linked with him in the summer, but he chose Celtic because Rodgers promised him nights which will live long in the memory.
“The reinforcement of what he’s doing now is why he came, which is about development,” said Rodgers. “He could have gone to other huge clubs in England or in Europe but he came here and was happy to work and to learn and he’s actually loving his life here.
“He is a great boy. It’s nice for him but he has to go out and perform at the same level against Dundee. Again I have found his representatives very up-front, very honest, and the riches they could have received as well as the boy, it’s a huge credit to them that they wanted to come and find a different experience where devel-