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Brendan Says Moussa Dembele Will Be At Celtic Park “For Years.” Bravo, Mr Rodgers.

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Brendan Rodgers has offered the first big hint that Moussa Dembele is seen as the lynchpin of his plans for Celtic, by telling the media that the player came to Celtic to develop as a player “over years” and not merely months.

It is an unmistakable message to player, board and rival clubs that money is not the issue here, that the player is an important part of his team and will not be allowed to leave.

To be fair to Moussa, he’s said much the same. This is still a kid, but one who knows he’s already a very special talent. He wants to grow that talent and that will be best served at a club where he’s already a fans favourite and a starter every week.

It will not work if he’s bought for some exorbitant fee by an EPL side who then benches him for most of his first season.

Moussa’s two goals against City prove that he’s good enough to play at that level. He’s also scored in one huge, high pressure domestic match. Yes, the Sevco game isn’t what the media has tried to make it but it was a high octane encounter nonetheless and one where some hacks actually thought his presence in the side in place of Leigh Griffiths would make the difference and allow the Ibrox club to win. Moussa had other ideas, and that he scored a perfect hat-trick is just incredible.

But above even that is his penalty kick against Astana; this was at a time when he’d yet to score, in the last minute of a game whose importance is hard to exaggerate. The composure for a young man to step up for that … extraordinary.

No-one should doubt what we have here.

Brendan certainly knows.

It’s not for nothing that he believed Moussa was so good that Leigh Griffiths would have to adapt his game to be accommodated in the same team; I do still want to see them play together up front, but it’s become increasingly difficult to choose which of the two I’d have starting every week.

That’s how big an impact he’s made.

I love that super-clubs are already hovering. The more of them there are the more this becomes an auction, and the crazier the money on offer will be. As I said before, that ensures that when Moussa does finally leave that we’ll get an obscene fee for him.

But until then, Brendan has spoken; the player is not for sale at any price. We want him at Celtic Park for the duration of this season and into the next Champions League campaign, where we can put even better players around him and give us a real chance of progressing.

At last, at long last, we’re building something here.

In Brendan We Trust.

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