Moussa Dembele is back, and no two ways about it.
This afternoon, he is playing for the French Under 21 team against Kazakhstan and he has gone and grabbed himself a second half goal. The big man has definitely gotten over his early season malaise; regular games, the scoring of goals and the trust of our manager has paid off.
I know there are a lot of people in Scottish football who do not get this, but we have ourselves on Hell of a footballer here. The blind refusal some have to see it is truly baffling, and I’m not just talking about in the media. I’m talking about some of our fans, who maintain that Griffiths would be in their team ahead of him.
I love Griffiths, but there is no way he’s a better player than Dembele. Moussa’s all-round game is vastly superior. He holds up the ball better, he creates opportunities for other players, his first touch at times is exquisite. And he scores when it matters.
Today he played the full 90 minutes. Olivier Ntcham came on as a substitute with 20 to go.
France had been toiling until Moussa opened the scoring; they ran out 3-0 winners.
He can consider himself unlucky that he has not yet been called up to the full squad.
But with the World Cup looming he is determined to take his chances, and he will have done himself no harm at all by grabbing that goal today.
And the World Cup and the timing of it may yet do us a huge favour; if Moussa can crack that squad from the SPL it removes one of the key arguments against him staying another season. Even if he doesn’t, the next major finals would be two years away, giving him the opportunity to keep honing his skills, and thus securing an even better move at the end of the next campaign.
The French Connection is paying dividends for Celtic; there’s no reason the Celtic Connection cannot continue paying dividends for France.
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