French Eddie Never Found Paradise Outside Celtic. Maybe He Never Will.

One of my favourite moments as a Celtic supporter in recent years happened at Ibrox, on the day we went down to 10 men and Brendan Rodgers’ superb tactical shift won us the match in dazzling style, courtesy of a wonder goal by French Under-21 striker Odsonne Edouard.

There are people who’ve criticised me today for my comments earlier about the youth player we’re bringing it at left back. They seem to think that being from the Barcelona Academy automatically means we’re getting genuine quality.

They simply refuse to see it for what it actually is: he’s a Spanish second-tier left-back who we’re getting on loan. That’s how I’m looking at it. Being from Barcelona does not automatically make him a world-beater; if he was all that, he would have been playing at a higher-level last season, or in their B side, where the real pathway is found.

For all that, I’m not actually criticising the player either; I’m criticising a policy which has us here after a two year search for a player in that position. It’s the policy that is plain wrong, and I will not stop condemning it.

I had no such doubts when Odsonne Edouard arrived at Celtic Park. He was younger than this guy is, with less first-team experience. I’m virtually certain that none of us knew his name, but I did my homework on French Eddie, as we all called him.

Eddie came from the PSG Academy, and that in itself didn’t confer any magical powers on him. But his goal-scoring exploits at every single level for the French national team up to the Under-21s, including a star turn where he topped the charts at an Under-20 tournament not long before, revealed a player of exceptional potential.

On top of that, Celtic had established its own little French quarter. We had Christopher Jullien, we had Olivier Ntcham, and more importantly, we had Moussa Dembélé. That was why most of us were fairly relaxed about signing Edouard. He was clearly seen as a backup to an exceptional main man, but that was the afternoon he proved he was more than that.

Until Kyogo Furuhashi, I thought French Eddie was the best Celtic striker I’d seen since Henrik. I even put him ahead of Dembélé, who was tremendous, and whose record of goals against our Glasgow rivals will forever hold him in esteem. And not just that—he did it on Champions League nights against the likes of Man City.

And yet, I thought Eddie shaded it.

I thought his close-control football was better, I thought his ability to play under pressure was better, and I thought he was one of the most gifted technical footballers I’ve seen at Celtic Park. When he spoke about his career path, it seemed clear to me that he and his agents had it pretty well thought out. They knew what they were doing when he opted for one of the lesser Premier League clubs instead of some bigger ones. Edouard didn’t want to sit on the bench—and why would he? He felt he was ready to take off.

His final stretch as a Celtic player wasn’t just hugely disappointing, it was shocking. Because we ceased to see the player who had shattered so many hearts that day at Ibrox, who had scored big goals in big games since; what we saw by the time he left was a lazy player, one who looked like he lacked heart, a player who looked like he didn’t have the stomach for a fight.

And I had a bad feeling that the world would never see the player Edouard could have been. Because even by then, it was clear that if he had to go and battle to get into another team and stay in that team, he might struggle to do it in a higher standard league.

And this is not about a lack of talent.

As Brendan has said several times in various contexts, talent is not enough.

It’s that other thing—it’s that heart, that fight. This seemed to go out of Edouard at times. Today, there’s a lot of stuff in the media about how Palace fans booed him at the weekend, and how his confidence is shot. That is one of the most evident things about Eddie: he is the epitome of a confidence player, and if that’s not there, nothing else is.

I feel bad for the guy because it can’t be easy being him right now. It’s clear he’s taken major backward steps. The move to England has not worked out at all well. And although he’s had flashes when he’s looked like the footballer we all thought he was capable of being there haven’t been nearly enough of them. And with that inconsistency has come a steady decline in his self-belief, and it must be, by now, at rock bottom.

It’s hard to see where Eddie goes from here.

Like a lot of players who move to a club in England or one of the big five leagues on a huge salary, Palace have found it incredibly hard to shift him. They have tried this summer, and there has been talk about a return to Celtic.

Having watched that infuriating version of him before he left, I’m inclined to agree with those who would be wary.

I mean, I don’t think it’s a realistic prospect. But you know, there is a part of me that wonders if Eddie doesn’t regret leaving when he did. That he doesn’t regret not working under Ange Postecoglou for longer and playing a part in a team that played that kind of football.

He must now wonder what it would be like to come back and play again under Brendan, the guy who had that confidence in him that day at Ibrox and inspired him to what might be his finest hour in football so far. I would understand if people in his camp were responsible for some of these stories.

Eddie does need to find himself again, does need to find his confidence again, and he does need to do it somewhere where he’s respected, valued, and even loved. And for all his sins in that final campaign, he would get that here, and he knows he would.

It’s amazing how many of these guys leave Celtic to better their careers and find themselves in stagnation instead.

They certainly do better financially than they could here, and our bean counters get to count more beans. They tell the world that makes them geniuses because they’ve managed to sell a sellable asset to a willing buyer, and the club gets to invest some small amount of that money back into the squad.

But it leaves a general dissatisfaction all around when a player like that leaves.

I feel the same way about Matt O’Riley’s departure as I did about Edouard’s. I’m rather ambivalent when it comes to his future career. I don’t really care that much whether he’s successful or not away from Celtic because he’s away from Celtic.

I don’t care about these guys once they’re gone. That’s why I don’t generally write “Thanks for the memories, and I wish you well” articles, because I don’t really feel that way about it, although in Matt’s case, it’s clear that he could have left in January had he started stamping his feet and demanding that the club sell him to Atlético Madrid.

And I think that had he decided to stay this summer, the club would have done well to up his salary explicitly because he hadn’t banged that drum at any point during this window. While I am grateful for what Matt did in a Celtic strip, the extent of that gratitude evaporates the further you are from the epicentre, which is Celtic Park itself.

Eddie has plenty of cause for regret.

He’s still a young guy, but the plan that his agents hatched has gone wildly off the rails, and he is in no better position than he was when Celtic took him on loan in the first place. That’s borne out by the fact that he hasn’t found a move in this window, although all parties are broadly agreed that he should go, for his good and the good of the club, and that’s the real tragedy of Odsonne Edouard, because he should be a hot property.

His time in England should have cemented him as an immensely talented footballer who could play at the very highest level. That’s the footballer I think we watched in patches and spells—long spells at times—while he was at Parkhead, and I’m only writing this now because of rumours linking him with a return to Celtic Park.

Unusually for me, I do wish him well, and I do feel bad that it hasn’t worked out. But I also believe this is a classic cautionary tale for anyone leaving Celtic Park, and guys like Jota can attest to this as well as anybody.

The grass might look greener, but it won’t necessarily be greener. The bank balance may be healthier, but your self-esteem and self-respect might not thrive, for all the cash in your account. I think you must therefore be careful. It’s not for nothing that all these guys talk about the magnificent Celtic fans. We are the best these guys will ever play in front of in their careers, and it doesn’t take them long at their new clubs to start working that out.

Although I would be opposed to bringing Edouard back on the grounds that we’ve taken enough backward steps in this window, I don’t believe it would be a failure either for him or for Celtic if we had been interested and somehow pulled it off.

I think Eddie has to find himself again and find a club that loves him, even if it’s not as much as ours did and would.

And you know what? If for no other reason than that wonderful memory of that Ibrox afternoon when he danced and weaved, cut inside, and fired that unstoppable shot into the back of the net, I sincerely mean it when I say I hope that he does.