I see that Moussa Dembele has been getting some stick on some forums and in certain parts of the net, with the accusation that a series of tweets and Instagram messages were “trolling Celtic fans.” The idea is ridiculous.
Some of our supporters are too excitable for their own good; it’s not the player’s fault that they can’t take a joke.
And the joke wasn’t even on them.
It was on the media.
Since the day he scored a hat-trick against Sevco, Dembele has been linked with moves away from Celtic Park. When he scored against City the whispers became an orchestra level cacophony that hasn’t quietened down since.
And through all of it the player has kept his feet on the ground.
Through all of it he has been calm.
How many times, and in how many ways, does Moussa have to spell this out to people? He is at Celtic Park for the coming campaign. If we crashed out of both competitions in Europe, before the campaign was properly underway, I think that might change things, but in the event we’re in the Groups of either the Champions League or the Europa League he’ll be around until at least January and probably longer.
Next season, who can say?
But he’ll be a Celtic player when this one kicks off.
The guy has said this enough times.
His agent has said it.
Celtic has said it.
He is happy at Celtic Park, and he is staying a while longer.
Does anyone really believe that he changed his mind over a weekend, and rather than tell the club first and let them tell us that he chose to make it public through cryptic announcements on social media? The whole idea of it is ridiculous. Dembele was having some fun, but not at our expense.
In fact, he was pre-announcing a big commercial move and having a dig at the media, for a dig it was.
He wasn’t trying to spark a frenzy of transfer rumours, because even they knew better than to pick up on this and try and turn it into more, but the general point of it wasn’t lost. It’s a comment on the amount of nonsense the media has put out there in the last year.
The purpose of his trip abroad was soon revealed; he landed in Boston, the home of New Balance.
He’s probably there to help us launch the strip over in the US, with him as the public face of it. Do you make a guy the public face of a kit launch, and do the sponsors and advertisers grab a chunk of his image rights, if he’s on the verge of quitting the club?
It’s a huge vote of confidence in his future here.
And it should knock on the head any suggestion, in the media or otherwise, that he’s heading for pastures new anytime soon.
The guy is happy at Celtic Park.
I suspect he is as pissed off with all this nonsense in the media as we are.
And this was his way of saying so.