AS he dismissed claims that Brighton have made a move for one of his leading strikers, Brendan Rodgers took the chance to send a message to another of them following Celtic’s cruise to a 2-0 victory at Dens Park yesterday.
The Celtic manager once again admitted that there could be a moral case to be made for the club to sell Moussa Dembele after leaving the Frenchman out of his starting line-up in favour of Leigh Griffiths, amid speculation that the English Premier League club had put in an £18 million bid for him that had been accepted.
However, he categorically denied that any such move had been agreed.
“It must have been a quiet day yesterday, Christmas Day, so chuck it out …” Rodgers mused. “Wherever it comes from, I don’t know. There’s certainly been nothing. I haven’t been informed of anything, but it’s all part of the modern game now.
“The players are doing really well and they’ve shown consistently the motivation to work well, so naturally there’s always going to be interest, but there’s nothing else in it.”
As to the prospect of a challenging few weeks ahead of the transfer deadline, Rodgers said his outlook was unchanged.
“It’s the same ideas [as last year] – we don’t want to lose any players and we won’t lose any players,” he said.
“However, if there’s something that comes in, it again goes back to that issue, morally. If there’s [an offer] where a player can earn five times as much as he’s on now, then it’s very, very difficult to stop him, especially if you then get a fee.
“But there’s a lot needs to be right for that to happen.
“We don’t need to sell anyone – that’s the idea – but what’s always important at Celtic, especially when you’re doing well, is that you know there’s going to be interest and you always have to prepare and if we lose any other players for the reasons I’ve just said then we hope we’ll have someone to bring in and just keep the continuation going.”
As Dembele waited on the sidelines yesterday, Leigh Griffiths, meanwhile, marked his return to the starting line-up in typical fashion, as he clinically registered the second of Celtic’s goals and cheekily appeared to mouth to supporters, “I’m the man,” as he celebrated.
Having stressed that his emphasis is on the team, Rodgers was asked if he had to accept that he was bound to pursue that sort of philosophy, but has to accept that strikers will be selfish.
Rodgers replied: “What you said there contradicted what you said I say about the team: there is no ‘but’, it is about the team.
“Strikers will always want to score goals and that’s how they get judged – goals in games – but we have to have strikers that can press and set the tempo of intensity at the top end of the field.
“If not, the whole structure of the team doesn’t work quite so well, but there’s no doubt he [Griffiths] has the ability to score goals, as does Moussa [Dembele], as does young Odsonne [Eduardo] and what’s great now is I’ve got three strikers all fighting for that place at the top end of the field.”
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