Opinion: Should Celtic have moved to bring 51-goal star back to club?
There has been some interesting transfer speculation regarding former Celtic invincible Moussa Dembele recently. Football Scotland reported that Southampton had a bid of £3m accepted by Dembele’s current club Lyon, and it is up to the player and his agents to get the move over the line.
When you think about it, £3m is not a lot of money for a player who is still just only 26-years-old, and who scored 51 goals in 94 appearances for the Hoops.
It should be pointed out that the reason that Lyon are willing to accept what looks to be such a small offer is because the player is out of contract at the end of the season, and they don’t want to lose him on a free transfer.
When you consider how successful that Dembele was in his time at Celtic – he helped the Hoops win two domestic trebles in a row – it is perhaps surprising that the Bhoys haven’t been linked with a move for the striker. Even though Celtic are set to sell Georgios Giakoumakis to Atlanta United, there hasn’t been any speculation about the player returning to Celtic Park.
That seems to indicate that the Bhoys under Ange Postecogulou aren’t interested in signing the striker. Is that a mistake and should the Hoops be looking to make a late offer for the player?
Maybe so, but the fact that Dembele has been limited to just two goals in 16 appearances this season for Lyon would have to be a bit of a concern, that the player is not the same as the one that lit up both the Scottish game and the Champions League in the time he was at Celtic Park.
Dembele was so good in his time with the Hoops that it seemed inevitable that he would one day move to England, but a move to relegation threatened Southampton probably isn’t what most people had in mind.
Do Celtic need to sign another striker? Maybe the club feel that with Kyogo and Hyeongyu Oh in the squad, they don’t feel that they need to sign another forward, and that Liel Abada, Daizen Maeda and Jota can all contribute goals from other areas of the squad.
Still, if the Bhoys want to sign another forward in the last hours of the transfer window, then perhaps Dembele could be an option if the move to Southampton doesn’t happen, the Celtic fans would likely welcome a move for a player who was key to the success that the Hoops enjoyed in the 2010s.
No!
Firstly, there isn’t a hope in hell that Dembele would have returned to Celtic while he is still capable of fulfilling his dreams of the EPL.
Realistically, why would he? We can never pay him what teams like this can and will!
Besides, he also knows how corrupt the SFA and SPFL are in regards to us. So why put himself through that grief again?
Keep the memories. They are priceless.
Hail Hail.
Yeah the issue with bringing him back to paradise would be his agents wage demands, but Southampton really he is a far better player to be going to a club like that .
No. He was great for us back then . Let’s leave it at that
Likely Min wages of 100k a week is £5.2 million a season , do you think we can afford him and is he worth it at this stage of his career? Those should be the questions here , I’d say the answers no on both fronts.