Celtic will be entitled to some of the money if Manchester United buy Moussa Dembele from Lyon, Football Scotland’s Matthew Elder writes.
The lowdown
Celtic signed Dembele on a free transfer from Fulham in 2016 and he went on to make 94 appearances for the club, scoring 51 goals and providing 18 assists.
In 2018, they agreed to sell him to Lyon for £19.8million, a deal that remains one of the most lucrative in their history.
The Daily Mail reported this week that Manchester United are now eyeing the Frenchman, with no guarantee that Marcus Rashford, Cristiano Ronaldo or Anthony Martial will be at Old Trafford next season.
United are aware that Dembele would qualify as a homegrown player following his stint at Celtic, offering another incentive.
The latest
Elder says that Celtic insist on sell-on clauses when they sell players, and they could now see the benefit of that strategy.
He thinks Lyon may be inclined to cash in on Dembele this summer because he’ll be entering the final year of his contract.
The portion of the proceeds which The Hoops are due to receive isn’t specified.
The verdict
The Mail claim that Lyon could ask for £25million for Dembele, and so Celtic would be in line to bank a fairly considerable amount of money, even if the clause is only along the lines of ten per cent.
The club can be very pleased with their transfer dealings in this instance, having banked a huge sum in the first place for a player who didn’t cost them a penny.
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And now they’re due to reap the rewards of some long-term thinking and firm negotiation.
With Jeremie Frimpong, who also has a sell-on clause, a target for Bayern Munich, Celtic’s coffers could be nicely boosted by external dealings this summer.
In other news, Celtic have received a fitness boost.
Most football fans spend the off-season tracking, at least loosely, the transfer dealings of their favourite team. There’s always one player – a Wesley Sneijder, or a Sergio Aguero – whose situation takes the entire two months to resolve, and who eats up a large portion of your summer with endless column inches and rumour bulletins dedicated to them. But at the same time as we get excited about who’s coming in, there’s often a player many fans want to see going the other way.
It may be for any one of a wide variety of reasons. Perhaps the player is, despite several years of good service to your club, no longer capable of contributing to the first team. Perhaps he’s a foreign import who hasn’t gelled with the squad, or adapted to English football; or perhaps the manager gambled on a signing who has turned out to be a dud. Whatever the reason, you want them out.
In the gallery below, FFC brings you a collection of the ten players in the Premier League right now who have most outstayed their welcome. Time be moving on, fellas.
Click on Wayne Bridge below to see the top 10
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Was there contact in the box? Did Smalling get the ball or the player? Well by answering these two questions you should come to the conclusion that ultimately despite the harshness of the decision it was a penalty and it was perhaps one of the few decisions that Atkinson got right on the night.
If it was up to me on a personal basis, I would’ve yellow-carded Zhirkov for going down too easily and looking for it, but objectively with the laws as they stand, an attacker who goes down after a movement by a defender towards him and not the ball will result in a foul and as Smalling made a movement towards Zhirkov, it was only going to end one way.
Smalling will learn from his mistakes and whilst this week was a rude awakening after a faultless rise to the first team since he joined, no one can argue he looked out his depth at Stamford Bridge even if he was upstaged by the other phenomenal new defensive talent on the pitch.
Now many will no doubt point to the loss of the midfield battle as the prime factor behind United’s collapse in the second half but these stats tell a story of their own.
In the first half it was the Nani & Evra show on the left flank, aided by the movement of Rooney and Hernandez drifting to the left and wreaking havoc against the defensively indisciplined Anelka and the tad cumbersome Ivanovic. Evra was receiving an awful lot of the ball and the aforementioned stats just mention the times he passed the ball, he was actually dribbling and touching the ball quite a fair bit more.
As expected his final delivery wasn’t quite up to it but nonetheless his mere presence on the overlap and his ability to take on men was telling and no doubt benefited Nani who could cut in with the full knowledge there was an option on the outside if he should wish to take it. So everything seemed to be hunky-dory in the first half and Evra was putting in a stunning performance, which begs the question what on earth led to him producing such dire stats in the second half?
Well one possible explanation and perhaps the most logical is that once we scored we sat back on the lead and prevented our full backs from getting forward with their usual gusto, another is that such was Chelsea’s rage at going a goal down that through sheer will of force they pinned us back and our midfield were unable to feed our full backs with the same frequency in the first, as is so often the case the truth perhaps lies somewhere in the middle.. we dropped off a tad but once it had been realised that this was an error, Chelsea were relentless and the momentum knocked the stuffing out of United’s attacking endeavours.
A very even Midfield Battle and surprisingly there were no major differences in the stats in the first half in comparison to the second for either of the midfields the other night, although Ramires put in a heck of alot more effort of the ball in the second, tripling his number of tackles made and intercepting alot more often.. in tight games like these between top teams, quite often just one individual with that little bit more fire in his belly and that evtra dosage of quality can make the difference.. yesterday Ramires stepped up his game after half time and it was perhaps the telling contribution.
Carrick was much better (to be honest he is generally better against Chelsea than most would think), quicker on the ball, braver in the tackle and had purpose with his passing. Scholes was efficient as he so often is and Fletcher despite the ambiguous passing stats produced a Kuytesque performance on the right flank making sure the ball stuck like glue when recieving possession, fired in a fair number of crosses and challenged Ramires in the off the ball stakes. For Chelsea Essien was good without ever being brilliant, Lampard was excellent when running with the ball and put in a fair effort off it and Ramires was the glue which held it all together.
For both sides there are weaknesses however in this department which need resolving in time for next season and its a similar problem… both lack a young vibrant creative midfielder and thus both sides can come across very functional and one dimensional on the ball relying on their full backs or forwards to create out of nothing rather than feed them with a constant supply of through balls and clever passing… prepare for a United v Chelsea midfield tranfer battle in the summer for a Fabregas-esque player…
4. Where both sides go from here?
Despite the loss I would still fancy United for the title and that is regardless of whether or not they win at Anfield. As for Chelsea I believe this win has papered over cracks that will again rise to the surface against the rest of the Premier League, teams who possess more energy in midfield than United have and can exert more pressure on them over 90 minutes. It is an ageing side and whilst they’re more than capable of achieving one-off results I do not believe they have it in them to produce a sustained resurgence and retain their title. What would help Chelsea is trying to find a way to incorporate Drogba in the side, he’s a talisman even if his legs aren’t what they used to be.
In Europe simply put I’d be surprised if either side make a definitive impact and I believe their respective weaknesses will prove costly, that said in United’s case I genuinely believe with the right line up they can be a match for anyone over two legs and as long as they don’t face Barcelona in a Final, then anything could happen. As for Chelsea if they are to win it then it will probably be down to that one man Machine David Luiz…
Continue to the NEXT PAGE…
5. Opposition One2Watch: David Luiz
David Luiz Match Statistics: 1 Shot, 1 Goal, 4 Interceptions, 22/29 Successful passes, 6/7 Tackles Made, 4 Clearances, 1 Block.
Mentioned the lad briefly in the ‘Rival Perspective – Chelsea v Liverpool’ blog and stated how in such a short space of time he’d done enough in his little cameo to suggest that Chelsea have a considerable talent on their hands, not to mention having seen him feature a fair few times for his previous club, one couldn’t help but be impressed with predominantly his defensive attributes.
He’s just what I’d call a ‘Total Footballer’, a dream player in your 5 a-side team, running up and down the pitch filling in at every position and performing each role with expert precision. It’s ridiculous how good he is for his age and the fact he relishes the physical nature of the premiership should frighten the life out of any striker willing to take him on.. he has it all.
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Reads the game exceptionally well, good pace, strong in the tackle, brave in the air, brings the ball out of defence well, good off the ball movement, powerful shot, fantastic technique and it seems he is now well-versed in the defensive dark arts… is there anything this kid can’t do, he’s a bargain at £20+ Million. The likes of Luiz and Smalling provide neutrals with great optimism for the future of the game and I for one can’t wait to see how their development pans out as they genuinely look like they can be world class.
Fantastic game, 2 excellent goals and one controversial penalty… a sending off and some goalkeeping heroics from Edwin Van Der Sar. Not to mention several referreeing howlers, so a game for the neutral basically and it was exhilerating to witness a Chelsea v United game that lived up to the hype in terms of spectacle and more importantly quality. It is often said in silly scorelines, ‘That’s what the Premier League is all about’ blah blah.. seriously folks, the match at Stamford Bridge was the real deal and a game which was a proper football match and hopefully a sign of things to come in the business end of the season.
Germany captain Philipp Lahm accused England of lacking respect following their World Cup exit.
England's World Cup campaign ended in total humiliation in the first knockout round as they suffered their worst-ever finals defeat, being comprehensively beaten 4-1 by Germany in Bloemfontein.
Two goals from Thomas Muller and further strikes from Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski sent the Three Lions packing and afterwards Lahm was not surprised by the outcome.
"Maybe England were not prepared for this game as they should be," said the Bayern Munich full-back.
"Maybe they underestimated us because our players are not as famous as the England players.
"The reason their defence could not handle our players was because we have very good strikers.
"We knew that we would have chances on the break if we let England attack.
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"It was very important for us to be good on the defence because we always have the quality to get forward.
"We can play short, quick passes and we have a good team. It is a young team, but it is a good team."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea has explained the scandal involving his supposed theft of a doughnut from Tescos, which he claims was not the reason he did not play against Norwich at the weekend.
The 19-year-old was accused of walking out of the supermarket without paying for the dessert, but De Gea has explained what had happened.
“Nothing really happened. Me, my cousin and a friend from Spain went to the shop, we were hungry and took the doughnuts,” he told The Sun.
“We were going to buy more things. I realised I didn’t have my wallet so I went out to the car to get it. Nothing more.
“They thought that I was leaving without paying so I tried to explain to them but my English is still not very good and we were there for a while.
“In the end a Spanish girl arrived and we understood each other and in the end they ended up apologising to us,” he explained.
The Spaniard watched from the sidelines as Anders Lindegaard took the field against Norwich on Saturday, but the Tescos incident did not play a part in this decision according to De Gea.
“Absolutely not true. They’re not going to drop me for a doughnut. The manager is the one that decides. He rotates players a lot and when he thinks it’s the right thing to do, he leaves you on the bench,” he concluded.
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De Gea and Lindegaard are battling it out to be United’s number one on a more regular basis, with a trip to Anfield next up for the Premier League champions.
Edin Dzeko hit a quick-fire double as Manchester City cruised into the last 16 of the Europa League with a 3-0 victory over Aris Salonika.The January transfer window signing from Wolfsburg, who lead a potent strikeforce alongside Carlos Tevez and Mario Balotelli, hit two smartly-taken goals inside the first 12 minutes.Yaya Toure netted a deflected third from long range with a quarter of an hour to go as the Sky Blues eased through to set up a clash with Ukrainian side Dynamo Kiev.City were ahead after just seven minutes when Nikos Lazaridis failed to control Aleksander Kolarov’s long clearance and Dzeko kept his cool to roll a shot into the corner of the net.The Bosnian made it 2-0 four minute later when he cut back onto his left foot on the edge of the box to fire a low drive beyond the despairing dive of Michalis Sifakis.The Aris gloveman then juggled a 30-yard free-kick from Balotelli and Pablo Zabaleta fired inches wide with a fierce drive from the edge of the box as City threatened to cut loose.Dzeko should have completed his hat-trick on the stroke of half-time when he beat the offside trap and tried to round Sifakis but the the goalkeeper saved smartly at his feet.Attacking towards their noisy and colourful 4,000-strong away following, Aris started the second half better but could only test Joe Hart with a weak shot from Raul Bobadilla.Midway through the half, Tevez created another golden opportunity with a neat pass to Balotelli but the Italian’s rifled effort pinged back off the inside of the post.The third finally came in the 75th minute when Kolarov’s corner was cleared to Toure, whose 25-yard drive deflected off the luckless Lazaridis and into the corner of the net.
Manchester United chief executive David Gill has confirmed that current boss Sir Alex Ferguson will have a major say in the appointment of his successor at Old Trafford.
Ferguson has given few indications of when he will finally bring the curtain down on his illustrious reign, but Gill says that planning for the future will be thorough.
He told The Independent:"We don't know when Alex is going to retire and long may he continue.
"It will be discussed with Alex, Bobby Charlton and the owners.
"I think Alex will be the key. He knows people. He will have a big role in advising and being a sounding board.
"I am sure we will talk with the owners and look at who is there and determine who we would like to appoint.
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Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish has stated that he hopes England boss Fabio Capello is ‘responsible’ with the use of Steven Gerrard, as he returns to first team football after an injury layoff.
The talismanic midfielder has been on the sidelines with a groin injury for almost six months, but made his return against Brighton in the Carling Cup in midweek.
With Gerrard an integral part of the Liverpool team, Dalglish hopes England are sensible with him for the upcoming Euro 2012 qualifier against Montenegro.
“I don’t pick England’s team. Whatever they have to do, they have to do. But I would just hope that they will be as intelligent as we have been,” the Scot told The Telegraph.
“He deserves to progress. It’s been a disappointing time for him with injuries and we don’t want to ruin this opportunity after he has done so well.
“He’s well educated, he knows himself better than anyone else. He will manage himself better than anyone else,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, Gerrard has stated his relief to be back in the Anfield fold, and may feature against Wolves on Saturday.
“I’ve had to watch from the sidelines while Kenny has been rebuilding the side and I’ve been really happy with what I’ve seen,” he stated.
“It’s been a nightmare for me. I’m not the best when I’m out injured and watching games.
“It’s been tough and the last six months have been a roller-coaster. But it’s behind me now and I’m looking forward to getting match fit and getting back in the starting line-up,” he admitted.
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For the past few transfer windows Manchester United fans have unleashed our inner transfer muppet hoping that another huge name is brought into the club.
United’s team isn’t perfect and there are areas that need attention but even when we are linked with players we don’t need we salivate and rub our hands together only to be disappointed when we hear Sir Alex Ferguson say:
‘There is no value in the transfer market.’
I won’t lie, I for one have been disappointed at times when hearing this but after the madness of deadline day no one can deny that he is, as per usual, right.
Darren Bent going from Sunderland to Aston Villa for £18m rising to £24m was crazy in itself but then with Chelsea bidding £50m for Fernando Torres and Liverpool in turn looking to pay £35m for Andy Carroll you start to think these clubs should be kept as far away from the transfer market as possible.
There is no denying Fernando Torres is a fantastic player, we’ve experienced this numerous times but anyone that denies he isn’t the same player he was a year or two ago is in denial. He looks to me to have lost a yard of pace or so and coming off a less than spectacular season and summer showing at the World Cup a £50m bid seems more than excessive.
Chelsea are looking to flex their financial muscles and reaffirm that they are still a force to be reckoned with in the league but at the same time are allowing Liverpool to put them over the barrel and the fact that it was revealed that they had bid for Aguero and Godin last week makes it seem that this is impulsive and desperate.
The Andy Carroll situation seems even worse.
£35m + add ons for the young striker seems crazy. Carroll has looked good in his début season in the Premier League and he does look like he will be a player but paying that much essentially for potential seems reckless. I have heard it said this is Liverpool signalling their intention to return to the big time but this smacks more of desperation than a signalling of intent. People pay for potential all the time, we have done it ourselves a few times but not at that price and whilst Newcastle fans may not want him to go Mike Ashley will be over the moon that he has forced Liverpool to pay so much!
Add to this a rumoured £14m for Blackpool midfielder and the situation becomes even more laughable!
This is a dangerous game being played here by clubs like Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool as they spunk excessive amounts of cash on players at a whim but it is also one that adds credence to Sir Alex’s utterances. Don’t look at this as a disgruntled United fan bitter because his team isn’t getting in on the act, a bit of perspective is necessary and when you look at the fact David Villa joined Barcelona in the summer for £34m the fees being thrown around look even worse.
The transfer window brings out the muppet in fans all across the country but it appears it does so even more for the people who are meant to be in charge at football clubs.
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Good thing we have a man in charge who can keep his head when those around him are losing theirs!
Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany has signed a new six-year contract with the Premier League champions.
The Belgium international skippered the Etihad Stadium side to their first top-flight title in 44 years last term, and is delighted to have extended his time at the club.
“For me if you are good somewhere then there is no reason to look elsewhere,” he told the club’s official website.
“Man City as a project is not just a project of the owners or the people employed by the club; it is also my project.
“I have been here since the beginning and I have seen everything at the club change inside and out.
“I have the feeling that I have contributed to it too. It is good to know that I can be at City for another six years. It is a compliment that the club feels so highly of me.
“Hopefully in the future I will have a bigger impact than I already have. I am good here. The fans have given me an incredible reception which is one of the main reasons that I signed this new deal.
“My family is happy and there are so many more trophies to win at this club that is why it makes it so special.
“I take it with great pride that I have been chosen to be captain and lead this team. Especially in England, more than other competitions, being the captain has got a lot more responsibility involved with it.
“I thrive on responsibility the more I get the more I perform. I am at the right club because I have built something here already.
“I have never denied that this can sometimes be the hardest team in the league of which to be captain, but like I said I am all about responsibility and challenge.
“This Man City project was probably one of the most difficult projects in Europe to be part of and so far we have all done a good job even though a lot of people said it wasn’t going to happen so quickly.
“I like the kind of characters that we have in our team. I like the challenges we have ahead of us. Now is the time to build the culture of winning we are in the right time; we are in the right moment.
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“We have laid the foundations and now we want to win more. If we do that then we can be one of the most successful clubs for a long time to come and that is the aim.
“I can’t wait to get started again. I am really excited about the season ahead,” he admitted.