Moussa Dembele took home the player of the month award for September, something that came as no surprise to anyone who watched him, in particular in the match against Sevco which he dominated like an old pro and scored a hat-trick.
I laughed at Sevco sites saying they’d made him look good. They also though their team would challenge us for the title. You can’t read their predictions from the start of the season without an attack of the giggles.
Dembele is already a very fine player, and the great thing is that he’s only going to get better. Club s are already starting to sniff; for the next two years at least they should be told to beat it and look elsewhere. We have no need to sell him and the player himself is happy playing for Brendan Rodgers and our wonderful club, and why wouldn’t he be?
Moussa will win a lot of things here at Celtic Park, or so we all hope. He’s got the potential to be the best player to grace these shores since the King of Kings himself. We ought to try and keep him for the same length of time.
He’ll still go on and be a top player somewhere else, with many years ahead of him in which to do it.
Congratulations to him on one Hell of a six week spell, in which he’s dazzled Scotland, shocked Man City and gone on to score twice for the French Under 21’s. This boy is just getting started; Sevco must be dreading coming up against him next weekend.
In the meantime, just one gripe; Brendan Rodgers missed out on his second manager of the month award for reasons unknown. Look, I’m not saying these things are biased or anything, but the criteria for deciding them often appears completely arbitrary. I once thought these things were based on points, but they can’t be or it would never have thrown up this month’s perverse result, where the Inverness manager gets the nod because, it seems to me, he managed a draw with us.
This is the same system, one would assume, that threw up the ridiculous Manager of the Year award which want to Warburton last season, for winning the second tier league and the third tier cup with the second biggest wage bill in the country.
We have little to complain about right now, and it seems petty to be focussing on something so dumb but our manager has been the top man two months in a row and has got one of the awards but not the other.
I find that ridiculous; this should be based on actual achievement like everything else in the game and yes, even if that means the same person wins again and again. That’s what judging things on merit usually means, it turns up such results.
Richie Foran got the award for his side going unbeaten; Brendan Rodgers’ side was too, with a single draw spoiling an otherwise flawless domestic term. Foran drew twice though, and yes the second game was against Aberdeen. But does drawing against the top two really merit him getting there ahead of Brendan, who masterminded a 5-1 win over Sevco and a 6-1 win over Killie during the same time period, as well as picking up a win at Motherwell?
Like I said, it does seem daft to be complaining … but sometimes the way these things are done leaves you baffled and even a little angry.
Congratulations to Foran for the win … but I’m not at all convinced he deserved it.