Brendan Rodgers said in an interview just the other day that his job in this window was to see the team strengthened, not weakened. That was interpreted by most Celtic fans I know as saying that Moussa Dembele and others would be going nowhere.
Some people find this hard to understand; Celtic does not need to sell players. Any of our players. The lights are on at Celtic Park. We’re having no trouble finding shillings for the meter. We have millions in the bank. We can pay our bills. Any club that comes to do business with us knows two things; no-one can pressure us and any player we do decide to part company with has a transfer value below which they can whistle.
Regular readers know I take serious issue with some of the output from Sky Sports Scotland, and with good reason. The amount of anti-Celtic garbage and pro-Sevco propaganda that flows out of its office is truly mind-boggling.
The same people who pay Charlie Nicholas to have a pop at us also have no trouble sending Jim White to South Africa for toe-curling nonsense with the Glib and Shameless Liar.
They might have got shot of the excruciating David Tanner, but the slanted news agenda he personified remains on full display.
On Christmas Day was one of the embarrassing moments in Sky Sports Scotland’s recent history; the “breaking news” story that Celtic had agreed to sell Moussa Dembele to Brighton. It was a story many of us knew was suspect the moment we heard it. The Brighton boss had put Dembele on his list, we all knew that, but it was a long list. Moussa moved to our club to further his career, not take it ten steps back. The fee was ridiculously low.
The story collapsed within hours. Sky first withdrew it and then stuck a majorly edited version back online, saying only that the clubs were “in talks”, a euphemism which can mean absolutely anything a desperate hack wants it to. The story was a complete fraud. Both Brighton and Celtic later flatly denied that any such talks had taken place.
News outlets rely on sources. Sources who lie to them are usually cast into the outer darkness, because that affects the credibility of the press. Sky Sports Scotland has none of that, which is perhaps why they continued to push their made-up story long after it had collapsed, and why they continue to push Moussa Dembele stories even now.
Today it’s Crystal Palace who are weighing up a move, except they’re actually not. As multiple sources confirm, they are in talks with Fiorentina over Khouma Babacar. Dembele may or may not be on their short-list, but Babacar is the guy they’ve made a bid for, the guy they are talking to, the guy who’s club actually has something concrete to discuss.
And that’s the crux of this. Not one outlet has ever actually nailed down a story where Celtic has received an actual bid for Dembele or Tierney or others. There’s a lot of smoke, and there’s real interest out there, but those clubs all know that Celtic doesn’t need to sell and that we’ll hold out for a price that reflects the market value of our footballers.
They also know, but pretend not to, that Moussa realises Celtic is a massive club playing on a massive stage and that he will not take a step down.
It’s time they stopped writing such clear-cut nonsense.
If they continue to, we can quite legitimately question their motives for doing so.
