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The Dembele Lie Is Blown So Now The Media Moves On To The Tierney One.

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Today, Chris Hughton torched one of the great media lies of the last few weeks; that Moussa Dembele was on the verge of moving to his club, down in Brighton.

That lie has taken many forms, the most flagrant of which was Sky Sports News Christmas Day cobblers when they splattered it all over their news show and their website, only to pull the story hours later.

It leapt into the print media and its online offshoots, like a particularly virulent strain of the runs. It spooked sections of the fan base. It caused people to scrutinise every step Moussa took, including when he was leaving the pitch against Sevco.

Headline writers had a ball, especially when Brendan said he had no idea if the player would still be at Celtic Park when the transfer window closed. They spun that into the kiss of death for the player’s Celtic career.

It was a matter of time before this saga ended with Moussa leaving Parkhead for the final time, probably on the last day of the drama.

Three salient details which contradicted this banquet of bullshit were being entirely ignored; the player had never asked for the move, and why would he? Brighton? Not in this lifetime. In case it’s escaped the attention of the hacks, players are moving to Glasgow from there and not even the better part of Glasgow. Second, Brendan was doing no more than being honest; no manager with a modicum of sense would, in the modern game, say a player was definitely staying at the club when so much speculation was swirling around him. And third and finally, all the reports of us “cashing in” were predicated on us selling below market value.

The story had more holes than a warehouse full of Polo Mints.

Now it’s collapsed completely as Hughton has scotched it. Other stories will doubtless emerge, other lies to replace this one, West Ham are one of those clubs already being whispered, who offer no more security than Brighton would have. Crystal Palace are there too … these clubs have one thing in common; they are EPL dreck. They don’t represent career advancement.

I think we could say, quite safely, that Dembele will not be interested in any of those clubs, a fact The Daily Record was trying to spin into a different version of the lie yesterday; Brighton and those clubs might not make their move because Dembele wanted more money than they were willing to pay and he had designs several levels above them.

The latter part needs no explaining; he’s at a Champions League club right now and why should he settle for trading that in for a Championship bound one? As to the money, nobody at The Daily Record has the first clue what Moussa Dembele’s financial demands are like and to try and pretend they do is insulting to the intelligence of even their dumbest readers. For them to claim it as an exclusive was especially brave though; a piece of speculative fluff that they were happy to take credit for emerging in their own house.

Not to be outdone though, the media narrative has already moved on.

With Dembele looking as if he’s going nowhere for a while (at least until all this garbage can start anew just about the time we’re going to play Champions League qualifiers) the focus has shifted to making up lies about Kieran Tierney, and links to Manchester United.

Note that none of these stories says a move has actually been made. Not one of them claims that there has been a bid. Not one offers a single salient detail which confirms even a word of the central premise of the piece; that United are looking for a left back and Kieran is near the top of their list because he’s cheaper than other options.

Forget the insult implied in that; Kieran is as good a left back as there is in Britain. Even if the player was of a mind to leave the club – he isn’t, as has been made clear time and time and time again – he most certainly will not come cheap, not by any definition of that word.

This is just more lies, more attempts to stir the soup.

These people never let up. The best thing to do is shut them up, albeit temporarily. Whilst the media wets its pants over events at Ibrox, the team at Celtic just keeps on keeping on, putting building blocks in place, planning for the next phase of Brendan’s revolution.

All the speculation in the world won’t stop it.

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