If you had read the online news last night before you went to bed, you could have been forgiven for thinking that Odsonne Edouard’s future will be decided in England. We know better than that though, right?
His future will be decided in Glasgow.
As Celtic fans we get this all the time; the media basically treating our club as if it’s irrelevant to these kind of deals, but we’re the ones who own the player and we’re the ones who will pull the trigger on any eventual deal.
How annoying to read articles which suggest that the power lies elsewhere.
If you believe what you read, the “battle” is between Arsenal and Leicester to entice Eddie south. Actually, enticing Eddie has very little to do with how this is going to go. Celtic are the only party that anybody here should be looking to “entice.”
The club that gets to talk to Eddie across the table is the one who meets the asking price which Celtic decides to set for him, or at least the club which gets closest to that price.
This is the only “battle” that’s really going on, and it’s a little dishonest for any outlet to be pretending that this is all down to convincing the player. It certainly is not.
In Eddie’s shoes, we’d probably all like to go to Arsenal. Leicester are having a good year and the Gunners look to be sliding, but that’s as fake as the Ibrox “renaissance” and built on similarly shaky foundations.
But even if Edouard comes to that conclusion all on his own, in order for that deal to go down Arsenal have to make the best bid for him.
He wants to play in England next, but we’re probably right to suspect that England isn’t his intended final destination; Eddie can play anywhere in the game and who would want a move to, say, La Liga if the alternative was living in Leicester for another five years?
Edouard will be a star in England, but he may not remain there.
His technical game seems more suited to Spain or Germany and there are clubs there – and In Italy of course – with the financial muscle to make it happen. In those environments he’ll be a giant.
But England first, it seems, although there’s also talk of Milan, another move which might suit him better than following Rodgers … but again, that comes down to who makes the best offer to Celtic, not to Eddie himself.
He gets that and he’ll quadruple his wages regardless, and something else too; it will hugely elevate his chances of playing for France.
So it’ll be nice for him either way, but those talks can’t even start until Celtic sees a sizeable portion on our plate.
Then, and only then, can he go house hunting somewhere else.