ANOTHER DAY another award for Odsonne Edouard, this time he has been named as the Sports Writer’s Player of the Year less than 24 hours after picking up the much more significant – because it was voted for by around 12,000 Celtic Supporters – Player of the Year on The Celtic Star. French Eddie has also won the club’s own Player of the Year and no doubt will get the Players Player of the Year – or has he already got that one? It’s hard keeping a tally on the accolades that he’s won – and each and every one of them is well deserved.
If you were unfortunate enough to be a supporter of the latest club playing out of Ibrox you’d hope that such a serious thorn in the side, a real pain in the ass of a player if you’re nose is blue, would be keen to cash in on his successes and head to a big league to make the big bucks. The old Rangers saw these things happen previously, with the likes of Kenny Dalglish and Charlie Nicholas leaving Celtic with holes that were impossible to fill. Dalglish went onto score the winner in the European Cup Final for Liverpool while Celtic endured a dreadful trophyless season with European qualification also failing to have been achieved. Nicholas was a special talent at Celtic too in his first spell but never reached the levels of King Kenny down south.. He was nevertheless a significant loss to Celtic in the summer of 1983.
More recently the new Rangers maybe felt they’d see some benefit in the sudden and somewhat dramatic departure of Moussa Dembele – a player who had scored the perfect hat-trick against their new club in their first ever league match against Celtic – and went on to inflict as much pain and suffering as he fancied on the statue guarding Follow Followers.
Dembele’s departure swelled the Celtic coffers and there’s more than likely a 10% sell-on windfall coming this summer as Lyon look to cash in on their star striker with Manchester Utd likely to more than double the money that they paid to Celtic in early September 2018. But what it didn’t do was weaken Celtic strike force – indeed this morning it is easy to see why many Celtic Supporters would argue that it had exactly the opposite effect.
The sale of Moussa Dembele opened the door for Odsonne Edouard to take centre stage as the club’s main man leading the line and he has risen to that challenge brilliantly, developing as a player, growing into the role and becoming a Celtic talisman. Depending on how long he stays – and he’s going nowhere for now – he could soon rise is esteem to be approaching the level that only Henrik Larsson has reached playing for the Hoops this century. A very special Celtic legend.
Edouard’s current contract runs to 2022, the same incidentally as Kristoffer Ajer, another Celtic player who has been linked with a big money departure this summer. Celtic will therefore make the call on any sales and would not wish to see the contracts running down and therefore the future transfer value decease. So extensions re the name of the game and while Ajer’s now former agent said there would be no extension in the Norwegian’s case, Odsonne Edouard looks willing and able to commit to extending his time at Celtic and will be here for the Ten-in-a-Row campaign at the very least.
Odsonne described the interest from the likes of Arsenal as flattering but remains focused on achieving more glory in the green and white hoops of Celtic. Speaking to the Scottish Football Writers, as reported by Scottish Sun, Edouard confirmed he wants to stay at Celtic.
“At the moment, I am still under contract with Celtic. My priority is to get back playing again. In the future, we will see what happens.
“Of course, winning ten in a row is very important for the club, players and fans. I’d love to be part of it. No one knows what will happen in the future but I want to be a part of it.”
Edouard’s success at club level was also matched by his significant break-through for the French Under 21s side – were he just couldn’t stop scoring for them and hit double figures in a handful of games after making his debut last season. That hints of a promotion to the senior side, although as France are the current World Champions, it’s a tough task to get into that team. For many Celtic Supporters it’s more a case of when that happens, not if.
The attention and the personal accolades that are mounting up for Edouard, won’t affect the player.
“It shows you are working hard and doing the right things as a player. It is flattering. But I just concentrate on trying to play well for Celtic. That’s what I am focused on doing at the moment.”
“My first target right now is to play football again after so much time away from the pitch. I only set personal targets for myself once the season actually starts.”
Odsonne had admitted that he’d set himself a target of 30 goals last season but the early curtailment of the season meant he ended up just short of that. He’s almost certainly going to be aiming to break that barrier this time around, although he’s keeping his personal targets to himself.
“It’s good to get back on the grass and see the white lines and get back on the football pitch. It just seems to lift your mood straight away when you’re getting up to go to training.
“Everyone will be in good condition and desperate for the games to start. We want to continue the hunger and the more you win, the more you want to keep delivering trophies.”
Have a look at those photographs above. We call Odsonne French Eddie but perhaps we need to update that nickname and give him one that reflects what he’s been achieving on the park for Celtic. Let’s start calling him LE SKELPER and we’ll see if it catches on!
