Moussa Dembele will not be leaving Celtic for Brighton. There it is. As bold a prediction as I can make. I mean, after all, why would he? This is a guy playing first team football right now. The promise of it in the EPL might sound attractive, but only inside the heads of the Record Online hacks who laboured over this nonsensical story.
Let’s take it bit by bit.
The transfer fee is an absurdity. £18 million?
They can whistle unless they are prepared to slap another £10 million on top of it. Then maybe Peter Lawwell will stop laughing long enough to continue the conversation. When you consider the fees sub-par players not in the French Under 21 team go for down there that figure is an insult.
But it’s this “he will be guaranteed first team football” part that makes me laugh. This is supposed to differentiate this low-ball bid from the bigger and better ones we know are out there. But I know of no top footballer who ever signed for someone doubting his chances of cracking the first team squad and so Moussa will believe he can start wherever he plays … dangling first team football at him is not going to make the difference.
Besides, as I said, Brighton? Celtic is an infinitely bigger club than Brighton and I don’t think Moussa is walking away from European football after Christmas to move to the blue rinse capital of Britain so he can engage in a relegation dogfight.
Is his career about one step forward or two steps back?
If he wanted Championship football he could have stayed at Fulham.
Brighton are 13th in the EPL right now.
But don’t let those seven places from the bottom fool you; they are very much mired in the brown stuff.
They’re on course to get relegated, and it’s surely worth a bet, get Premier League odds here.
They are on 18 points after 18 games … the bottom club, Swansea, is on 12 points from 17. West Brom, in front of them, have also played 17 games but they are on 14 points. Win their game in hand and they are a point behind Brighton. The other teams who form that little Circle of the Damned are Newcastle and Stoke on 15 and 16 points respectively, Bournemouth on 16 and Palace and West Ham on 17 each.
Brighton are in real bother.
The drop from 13th to last is a handful of games.
I don’t mean The Record writing made up pish; it’s their stock in trade.
I mind that none of its writers can go and look at a league table.
Much of the article is actually the same discredited crap they were running earlier in the week, before they pulled it.
“Dembele hinted at a January move away from Glasgow’s east end in a recent press conference ahead of the midweek win over Hamilton,” the report says, “and the Parkhead club could be ready to cash in.”
Hinted at. I mean Jesus.
They twisted the guys quote beyond recognition, read it into what they wanted and then had to pull from publication the first article they wrote on it.
And us cashing in?
Do we need to?
Are we short of money all of a sudden?
And this would be the first time I’ve ever heard of where a club “cashed in” and missed a potential bonanza of another £10 million or so on top of the fee.
This story has more holes than a Dave King affidavit.
I know Sevco fans need a lift, but do the hacks at that rag really believe this is it?
