I’ve read a lot of despondent commentary online today, and not a little glee from certain other club’s fans, about the news that Moussa Dembele is probably out for the rest of the season. The news wasn’t exactly unexpected; those hamstring injuries can be bad, and his immediate reaction to it told its own story. He knew it was a nasty one.
What is unexpected is the reaction to it in some quarters.
I see no need for sadness in the Celtic end. Moussa has had an exceptional season.
There is no question about that at all.
But there is an argument to be made that he hasn’t scored enough goals – which seems ridiculous considering the valuations of him being thrown at us from English clubs.
In my view he has more to his game than that, and it’s why the English clubs are sniffing with their cheque books open wide. You saw it in the short time he was on the pitch at the weekend. He laid on McGregor’s goal. He held the ball up.
He caused panic every time he got near their penalty area. As an all-rounder he’s the best we’ve got.
Yet there’s long been debate about whether he’s the best goal scorer we’ve got, and that debate arises, naturally, from having Leigh Griffiths in the squad. With his awesome tally from last season still fresh in our memories, Leigh has a good claim on that title himself.
On Sunday he too had a huge impact on the game. His alert run won us the penalty kick for the second, and decisive, goal. He was also desperately unlucky not to score when he had a superb shot well saved by Foderingham.
To be able to bring a player of his quality off the bench and get him into the match was huge for us. I have no fears that he will produce the goods in the final run-in. Indeed, he has more incentive to push himself than any other player in the squad at the moment. This is the chance he has been waiting for, an opportunity to shine and show the manager what he can still offer to Celtic going forward, and that’s needed if he’s to be here in the long term.
Brendan has made it clear he sees signing another striker as a priority in the summer window. Leigh could quickly find himself the club’s third choice forward; he’s way too good a player to do that, so you’d have to conclude that in those circumstances his career here would in serious danger of coming to a premature end.
This is the moment he’s shown the patience for, hoping it would come, perhaps not even really expecting that it would.
Now that it has, I expect him to seize it.
There is no question that opposition sides fear his prowess in front of goal. He’s still managed to score 14 goals this season in spite of being out of favour; that’s two more than the player Sevco is handing a new contract to. It’s nine more than Dodoo. Martyn Waghorn has one goal more, but he has played more than 30 games and the bulk of his goals came in the “group stages” (try not to laugh) of the revamped League Cup against lower league teams.
Griffiths is the best out and out striker in Scotland, hands down. When he was ruled out of the opening Sevco game this season the reaction from most quarters was to think it was an enormous blow to the team. “It’s a game-changer,” Neil McCann said. He was right for once, but not in the way that he thought. Nevertheless, it’s without dispute that Sevco were happy to see the back of him, and they won’t relish his starting in the coming Ibrox encounter at all.
Between now and the end of this season, Leigh will play six games. I expect that by the time he’s finished he’ll have 20 goals or more. I have no worries about him stepping into the big shoes Dembele has left behind.
We’re lucky to have a guy this good, ready to do his stuff.