Brendan Rodgers has confirmed that he will decide when Moussa Dembele leaves Celtic.
Reports of an offer from West Ham last week brought some hysteria that the striker would be on his way with a healthy profit turned around.
Rodgers would rather have Dembele on the park that more millions in the bank as he explained during Celtic’s training stint in Dubai.
“I won’t need to lose a player that I don’t want to lose,” Rodgers told the UAE website The National. “Moussa’s been in the door only six months and he’s developed as we thought he would. For now I’m happy with that. There’s going to be players who leave this window, because they want to play football and I respect that.”
Asked about Zinedine Zidane’s suggestion that his striker should have been called into the French international squad Rodgers added: “It’s great for Moussa and it’s also great for Celtic that there’s a player of that quality on the radar of someone like Zidane.
“It doesn’t really affect us. It’s something for you guys in the media to speculate about, but for me it’s just about getting on with the development of talents.”
Dembele has scored 19 goals in the first half of the season for Celtic including three in the Champions League and five against city ‘rivals’ Sevco.
With a four year contract signed last summer the player’s commitment to Celtic is as obvious as Rodgers enthusiasm to further develop the striker’s game.
With a work permit awaited to complete the £2.8m signing of Kouassi Eboue from Krasnodar the Irishman is pushing ahead with his plans for the future with Dembele at the heart of those plans.
Asked how long he could envisage Dembele staying at Celtic, Rodgers replied: “You can’t put a time on it. He’s a big talent, he’s only 20.”