Moussa Dembele

Strange that, he has a pretty decent goal return for a team that aren’t always at the top of the league.

 

Lyon director of football Vincent Ponsot has admitted they regret splashing out £20 million to Celtic for Moussa Dembele as he prepares to leave for nothing.

The striker is set to quit Lyon at the end of the season when his contract expires after five years at the club. The Ligue 1 side splashed out a huge amount to land Dembele in 2018 after he spent two hugely successful years at Parkhead.

But that's a financial disaster for both Lyon - who will not get any money back from their expensive outlay when he signs for a new club at the end of the season - and Celtic, who have been waiting to collect a 15 per cent sell-on clause and will also receive nothing.

Dembele was linked with a string of big money moves for almost the entire spell at Lyon, including Barcelona, Juventus, Manchester United and Arsenal, but ended up only going on loan to Atletico Madrid in an unsuccessful stint two years ago where he failed to score.

And Ponsot admitted they handled his contract situation wrong and accepted the 26-year-old has been an expensive mistake after scoring only three goals this season.

He said: "It's not a nice situation for us to know that he will leave for nothing at the end of the season.

"We spent 22 million Euros on him and it's been a big regret.

"More and more players are doing this now with regards to their contract and of course, that is their right."

 

Salty..

Who cares..

 

It feels like Lyon managed him really poorly.

It seemed clear he wanted to leave after a couple of years so they probably should’ve just facilitated that.

 

We should bring him back on a free just for a laugh.

Don't know what's gone wrong this season but he still scored over 20 goals for them last season. And the quip about him failing to score for Atletico is funny, because he made 5 sub appearances for them in the league during his time there. He also scored two goals to help them into the semi finals of the Champions League a couple of seasons ago. It's only a big regret because they're not getting a fee for him, they still got a good player.

 

I read it as the regret being that they've got themselves into a position where they'll lose him on a free, rather than they regret paying £20m for him

I do think he hasn't been managed well by Lyon

 

Yeah you're right, but that's not the way it's being spun in our media (obviously).

 

What did they think was gonna happen when they had a manager who’s not playing him they wouldn’t get the valuation they want because not playing him and the teams he would like to go to would not come in because of this so of course he’s gonna run the contract down


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What does a semi final in cl net in prize money 10-15 million … the guy scored the winning goals to get their they got their return just not in a transfer fee sense I’m sure athletico paid a loan fee for him too


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The wages he's asking for are probably putting teams off.

 

Lol plonkers..should have just sold him when he was on a roll or done the Moreorless scam - sign on and then flog him

 

Dembele’s agent consistently said that their blueprint was always to see out contracts.

I get that he didn’t do that here, but surely Lyon were aware of this?

 

Record for Lyon -
126 games, 56 goals. Only started around 60% of the games. That is a good record and Lyon is probably just buthurt losing him on a free.

Only 26 years old, not even in his prime yet. He will still go to the top imo! Always been a fantastic striker.

 

Did he not finish top scorer in just the last half of a season? I find it mad teams like arsenal wouldn't take a shot on him. Much cheaper than what some have splashed on utter *. A striker like dembele is the difference jn the CL for us. Good luck to him but wherever he ends up.

 

Yeah he would have scored a couple in the CL if we still had him

 

Bring him home.

 

Love him, he just gets it

 

Moussa Dembele has entered talks with Napoli over a potential summer switch as they target a Victor Osimhen contingency plan.

The French striker is out of contract at Lyon at the end of the season and has told the club he will not sign a new deal. That allows the ex-Celtic star to talk with other options and different clubs with a view to making a move. We told yesterday how Eintracht Frankfurt were in discussions with the player's agents.



But now Football Scotland can reveal Serie A champions Napoli have also opened a dialogue with representatives at Mansa Sports Management over the availability of their star man. It comes as they expect star striker Osimhen to be the subject of major Premier League interest this summer


We can also report Marseille in Ligue 1 are keen to speak with Dembele as he weighs up all his options ahead of his exit from Lyon.

There are a number of Premier League clubs circling the 26-year-old who scored 51 goals at Parkhead in less than 100 appearances


He continued his scoring initially at Lyon before he was allowed to leave on loan to Atletico Madrid.






He returned to his home country and parent club after seven games in Spain but has played second fiddle to Alexandre Lacazette after he joined from Arsenal back in 2022.



Celtic won't see any money from Dembele despite having a sell-on clause inserted in his contract initially. Any cash would have come from a profit on Lyon's sale after he joined for £19million. He leaves on a free.