Deal on for Dembele! Celtic will sell Dembele to Lyon tonight!

CELTIC will, we understand, sell Moussa Dembele to Lyon this evening for a fee of just over £20million.

The French Under 21 striker has forced the move with Brendan Rodgers being sickened by the unfair and rather unwise attacks by the former Fulham striker over the past 12 hours.

A sulking Dembele was told earlier today to leave the Celtic training pitch by the Celtic manager after 15 minutes or so as Rodgers wanted to ensure that he was ‘protecting the environment’ ahead of Sunday’s Glasgow Derby against Rangers.

Rodgers later stated that Dembele was very unlikely to feature in Sunday’s match.

Now Celtic have decided to remove ‘une mauvaise graine’ from the squad and that means selling the French player tonight.

Lyon are currently playing at home to Nice and the game is goalless at the moment, so their need for a new striker is apparent.

Dembele will sign a 5 year contract with Lyon and will increase his salary to around £80,000 per week.

Dembele left the Celtic training ground at 1.45pm driving at speed and presumably was in race against time to have a medical for the French side.

Expect Celtic to take the player back on loan until January – that would NOT be the biggest shock in a week of surprises, but maybe it’s too personal now and the relationship between the player and manager is irretrievably damaged.

Anyway  if there is no loan agreement, thanks for those magical moments on the pitch Moussa, the ‘Skelping in particular, but the name of the front of the shirt is ultimately always bigger than any player’s name on the back. Better strikers than you have left and we’re still strong, we’re still Celtic.

Au revoir, merci pour les buts et enfin, bon continuation à Olympique Lyonnais…

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About Author

The Celtic Star founder and editor, who has edited numerous Celtic books over the past decade or so including several from Lisbon Lions, Willie Wallace, Tommy Gemmell and Jim Craig. Earliest Celtic memories include a win over East Fife at Celtic Park and the 4-1 League Cup loss to Partick Thistle as a 6 year old. Best game? Easy 4-2, 1979 when Ten Men Won the League. Email editor@thecelticstar.co.uk

1 Comment

  1. Celtic cannot bemoan the timing of the Dembele situation because they have had plenty of time to bring in new players. The striker positions has been one of the area’s that we have had to strengthen as we have known due to the regularity of injuries to the players in the position now. The situation also shows the astounding lack of foresight in the transfer market that the Celtic board have in general. Or is it deliberate? Even now, if the sale of Dembele has left us worse off for strikers, had we strengthened in the more obvious playing positions then this disastrous loss of our main striker would not be so badly felt.