MOUSSA SAGA IS TURNING INTO A MESS
CELTIC’S much-vaunted policy of buying low and selling high is littered with success stories. And missed opportunities. Moussa Dembele is starting to look very much like one of the latter. A man they missed the boat with in that most fickle world of football transfers, destined to join the likes of Artur Boruc, Beram Kayal and Emilio Izaguirre in the list of what-might-have-beens.
There are still four days to go until the January window closes, of course. Maybe there a bank-busting proposal ready to wing its way to Parkhead chief executive Peter Lawwell. It doesn’t look like it, though. With Brighton off the scene, the trail appears to be going a little cold.
It is hardly a surprise. After all, would you be in a rush to pay £20million-plus for Dembele after the events of the last week or two?
He has looked a shadow of his old self since returning from injury. It has become so bad that he can’t even get off the bench in a game against Brechin City.
The reason? Despite the best efforts of manager Brendan Rodgers to paper over the cracks, it is impossible to avoid the admission from his assistant Chris Davies that there is ‘an acceptance that maybe Moussa feels it is the right time for him to move on’.
If nothing else, this little episode will have given Davies an insight into the perils of telling the truth at the Old Firm. His comments have been shot down quite spectacularly since. Rodgers, having conceded the Frenchman has lost focus, has even gone back to last season’s default position by putting the ‘No Sale’ signs back up.
He has little option. Full of potential or not, Dembele (right) now seems a bit of a gamble at the rates discussed if there really is an attitude problem or some kind of difficulty in blanking out external noise.
He is certainly coming across as huffy, unable to handle speculation and preoccupied with getting out the door to the right club. And much of this perception, whether right or wrong, has been reinforced by comments coming directly from within Celtic Park.
If Rodgers and Lawwell were trying to operate some kind of sales tactic over the course of the month, it looks like they got it wrong.
Their best option now probably does lie in trying to get Dembele’s eye back on the ball — not easy with an unsettled player — and using next month’s Europa League ties with Zenit as a showcase ahead of the summer. It’s a far cry from a year ago. West Ham talked up a £20m offer on their official website. There was chat of Chelsea being quoted £40m. Liverpool and Manchester United had scouted him extensively.
All through it, Celtic were intransigent. He was going nowhere. Yes, in the end, there were no serious, concrete offers to consider, but how much of that was down to the attitude exuding from the Parkhead management? They could surely have found a buyer last January if they had really tried. And they should know from past experience that there is a prime time to cash in on players that may not come around again.
Boruc, for example, was hot property in the wake of excellent displays for Poland at Euro 2008. He signed a new contract afterwards and hinted at a release clause within it, insisting Celtic saw him as a £10m asset. He went to Fiorentina for £1.7m two years later.
Izaguirre stated Manchester United were chasing him in 2011 after a terrific debut season. He ended up sliding out the side door to a team in Saudi Arabia after losing his place.
Kayal, likewise, insisted Manchester United were keen. An £8m fee was mentioned. He ended up joining Brighton for less than a million thanks to falling out of favour in the wake of injuries and lost form.
There is an argument that Celtic should ‘play hardball’. Why sell Virgil van Dijk to Southampton for £13m when Liverpool will pay £75m for him a couple of seasons later? Well, it’s the market, isn’t it? There is always going to be suspicion over exactly what stock can be placed in a good season in the SPFL.
Lawwell spoke just before last January’s window of his desire to transfer players straight to England’s top clubs rather than seeing the likes of Southampton cash in by serving as a stepping stone. ‘I don’t think it will be long before we sell into the top four,’ he stated. ‘We need to make the breakthrough to the top four.’
Kieran Tierney might still realise that ambition. As for Dembele, it is looking less and less feasible. Lawwell must have held hopes of him being the man who broke the mould, but talk of a £40m fee or even a £30m one seems crazy now. Whatever happens, Celtic
will turn a huge profit on the 21-year-old when he leaves. Yet we are always likely to wonder what they might have received had they pushed for a sale when the hype was at its peak. Celtic’s model is built on selling for profit. There is no sin in striking when the iron is hot. They didn’t do it with Dembele. And it looks like costing them.