Siriki Dembele is a very decent footballer, and he plays in exactly the position where we need a player; he’s a winger who plays on the right hand side. He’s young, talented and the brother of our own Karamoko Dembele.
Some think one of the reasons we want him is that it will give us a better chance of keeping our youth prospect at the club.
What’s clear is that our interest in him is real. We’ve scouted him several times and his manager freely admits that. But other clubs have scouted him too.
I’m on record as saying I don’t want Lennon to get more money to spend, but if it’s going to happen then I’d rather we didn’t mess about.
We do need a right sided midfielder and that’s been true since the summer.
It is a position where a signing won’t be wasted.
For all that, Dembele is a project player. Of course he is.
This is how we do things, and that’s probably not going to change.
I don’t have the first clue how we’re going to get on when it comes to signing players next summer; I suspect we’re going to have problems in putting the squad together once the Brexit restrictions come in. Dembele wouldn’t be a problem because he’s a domiciled player … but common sense would dictate that if we’ve got long term targets playing abroad on our list that we should go for them now, whilst we can.
Common sense doesn’t work at Celtic, and doing business in that way would run counter to Lawwell’s summertime tradition of playing the master negotiator.
Not that he has another summer left; he can’t.
Still, what a disaster that man has been in that role. Honestly.
Even the summer just past seems like one of half measures and compromises in the cold light of day.
It seems clear that we should have paid the proper money for Ivan Toney; instead Lawwell played out his usual game of poker. Which we lost. We then spent the money we could have offered for Toney on Ajeti. Who at present can’t get in the team.
Of course, we wanted Forster, but got Barkas instead. Look at the trouble that has cost us, all of it self-inflicted, as I pointed out earlier. You have to wonder if the manager’s reluctance to give Barkas time to settle suggests that he wasn’t sold on the idea of signing the guy in the first place.
That would be so typical. That would sum things up for us.
Whatever the plans are for January, it’s high time our expensive CEO started to perform instead of posing and preening and acting like Billy Big Time.
It’s time he started to act with a little humility in his dealings with other clubs.
The high-handed, and frankly shocking, manner in which he has briefed the press and postured over the last few years has been deplorable and especially because it usually ends in abject humiliation. On top of everything else, we are scorching our own reputation for dealing with people squarely and in a reasonable fashion.
We also look amateurish.
I am tired of watching us flail about trying to get business done. If Dembele is one of the targets, then we should make his club a reasonable offer and close the deal. If it’s someone else that we’re after, then go and get him and stop trying to low-ball people.
How many times now have clubs come out in the press and condemned us for the way we try to do business?
Some of the offers we’ve made for players in the past couple of years have been insulting.
How do we act when clubs try those games with us?
We tell them where to go.
I want Lawwell gone at the end of this season, one way or another. I think most people do.
This club needs closure on his era at the club, especially as it’s probably not going to end well. I know dozens of supporters who simply will not part with another penny whilst the club is run by the same people and in the same way … big changes are needed.
In the meantime, he can do us a favour for the time he has left and act like a professional putting the club first, and not a strutting performer in his own fantasy.
Celtic deserves better in January than another Peter Lawwell ego-trip.
It’s high time – it is past time – that he and other people at our club got real.
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