Celtic and Dembele are
The language is beginning to centre on loss when those in the Celtic camp speak about Moussa Dembele. Yesterday, the club’s assistant manager Chris Davies wascandidenoughtosuggestthatmaybe the Frenchman had lost his desire to be in Glasgow.
In so doing, he was merely developing a theme taken up by his manager, Brendan Rodgers, at the weekend. Then, the Irishman talked of essentially having lost the player that the Frenchman was last season because of the constant transfer speculation surrounding the 21-year-old, and how the resultant loss of focus had left him feeling unable to play Dembele in the Scottish Cup success over Brechin City.
With Leigh Griffiths available for tonight’s visit to Partick Thistle after missing out at the weekend with an ankle knock, Davies gave every indication that game time could prove as elusive for Dembele at Firhill as it was the other day. It may be that Dembele is never seen in Celtic colours again. That, of course, would require the final nine days of this transfer window to result in an acceptable concrete offer for the player – with any such bid, once put at £40 million but now probably in the region of £18m, conspicuous by its absence... despite all the froth about would-be interested parties. These once seemed to range from all manner of the elite, including Chelsea and Real Madrid. Now the names mentioned are Crystal Palace and Everton.
As he rattled in the goals and seemed to have the world at his feet six months into his life at Celtic 12 months ago, Rodgers Bournemouth defender Baily Cargill trained with his new Partick Thistle teammates for the first time yesterday morning and, all being well, he should have a baptism of fire when Ladbrokes Premiership leaders Celtic make the short journey across presented Dembele as a performer he would not part with. As the France under-21 international has struggled for fitness and form a year down, the Celtic manager has intimated that a parting could be imminent. There is every indication that Celtic, never mind Dembele, would not be averse to ending their relationship.
“I think time has gone on. And I think, obviously, there has been interest in him,” Davies, pictured left, said of the change in emphasis over a possible move for the player.
“It’s a feeling now that, of course he’s our player and we’re happy for him to be Glasgow to face the Jags this evening.
Thistle have managed a solitary draw in the last 28 meetings between the clubs and haven’t beaten the Premiership leaders since 1995, when John Lambie’s side recorded a 3-1 victory in a league match played at Hampden while Parkhead was being renovated.
However, while the prospect of taking on Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair (which he will do assuming one final piece of paperwork arrives from Fleetwood Town, his most recent loan destination) is undoubtedly daunting, Cargill revealed that he has come through bigger tests.
“Everyone wants to play in the biggest games they can so, if I can play against Celtic, that would count as one,” said the 22-year-old.
“I made my Premiership here – and we know what he can do. But there is also an acceptance that maybe Moussa feels it is the right time for him to move on. And when a player feels that way, then, there is not an awful lot of point in stopping them – unless you really have to. So that’s kind of how it’s evolved. I don’t think Moussa is desperate to leave. The situation is where it is. But nothing has actually happened yet, it’s been speculation.
“Here we are with nine or ten days to go and there’s been no formal bid. So we can only take it like that – and possibly stop focusing on that situation so much.”
It can feel as if there has been a daily
“Here we are with nine or ten days of the window to go and there’s been no formal bid”
debut at Old Trafford when I was up against Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford and we drew 1-1. I only had the last 25 minutes of that game but I had a few tussles with Zlatan and it was really enjoyable; it went so quickly.
“Also, when I was just coming through at Bournemouth, at 19 I managed to play in the League Cup quarter-final against Liverpool in 2014. They had Steven Gerrard, Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho playing and Brendan Rodgers was the Liverpool manager at the time. We lost 3-1.”
Cargill also revealed that
CHRIS DAVIES diet of Dembele rumour mongering. As if it has become one of the perennial pastimes of Scottish football. No wonder it
0 Baily Cargill: Baptism of fire. Scotland midfielder Ryan Fraser encouraged him to head north of the Border.
“I’ve never been to Scotland before but Ryan is one of my good friends,” he said.
“I spoke to him and he only says good things about Scottish football. He told me he had a good opportunity at Aberdeen when he was a youngster and it gave him the platform to get to where he is now.
“He advised me to get up here, enjoy it and play games.”
Thistle manager Alan Archibald said: “Baily trained with us on Monday and he will be a like-for-like replacement for Jordan Turnbull [who has returned to Coventry] at left centre-back.”