Is This Celtic Attacker Really Worth £40Million?

Celtic forward Moussa Dembele has been a revelation since he moved to Celtic, and the £500k fee that they paid is now looking like a steal. Especially when you consider that a fee of £40million is being touted as his fee.

But, is he worth that much?

It’s a hard question to answer, and ordinarily you would say no. But within the current football landscape, and the fee’s being spent on some players, it confuses the situation a little.

There is no doubting his talent. His 16 goals in 25 appearances so far for the Scottish club is very impressive. And he has shown during these performances that he is capable of scoring all different types of goals.

But this needs to be put into some kind of context. He is playing in a league which isn’t very competitive. A good example of this is his Celtic team-mate Leigh Griffiths who made an average impact in League One in England before moving to Celtic. He scored 40 goals in 50 games last season.

And while Dembele does look to have stepped up a level considering his Champions League performances, he only scored 15 goals in 43 Championship appearances last season so had nowhere near the same output as this year.

Then you must consider the record fee’s for players bought from Scotland. It currently stands at £13million that Southampton paid for central defender Virgil van Dijk. And there is a reason for this, it is simply very hard to gage how good a player is when they’re playing against opposition that is the equivalent of League One in England each week.

Yes, the fee’s involved in football have gone crazy of late, with inflated fee’s being paid for players who are average. You can see the £30million paid for Sissoko and Bolasie for an example of this.

Were Moussa Dembele to leave Celtic for a fee in the region of £40million, it would make him the 22^nd most expensive player of all time. Now I know the desire to sign the next big forward is a big one, but he has nowhere near proven that he is worth anywhere near that yet, surely?

It’s very easy to get carried away with a bit of good form, but you really need to put it all in context. There is no doubt that Dembele, when he does move, will smash the Scottish transfer record.

But simply because of the competition he is playing in, there is a ceiling for how much a player that has emerged from that league is worth. A team cannot take £40million risks based on him scoring a few goals against some pub teams.

There is a lot of hype at the moment, for obvious reasons. But if a club bid £40million, Celtic simply must bite their hands off. And to be honest, anything north of £20million and they seriously need to be considering cashing in.