Why Moussa Dembele will end up in the Premier League, even if he does not leave Celtic for Chelsea on deadline day

The French striker has always been headed for the top flight, and his brilliant form at Celtic shows that he is good enough

Moussa Dembele is destined for the Premier League even though he's unlikely to leave Celtic in January (Getty)

Moussa Dembele will come to the Premier League. There is no doubt that the 20-year-old striker will be back in England soon enough, playing for one of the top sides. It just might have to wait until this summer, or even into 2018, because Celtic have made clear that they want £40m for Dembele this window. Chelsea like him, but they do not like him that much, raising the possibility of another auction this summer. Every big team in the country would be involved.

There are few secrets in elite football anymore and everyone is wholly aware of just how good Dembele is. For him Celtic has been the perfect platform, a shop window to show off his skills. Had he left Fulham for a big club last summer, he would not have been first choice. But at Celtic he has scored 20 goals already. His overhead kick against Manchester City proved that he has the imagination and ability to take on the very best.

Dembele only cost Celtic £500,000 in compensation, as he left Craven Cottage at the end of his contract there. Given that he could plausibly leave for 60 times that amount it will be a brilliant bit of business from Celtic. They have made a success in recent years of sensing which players would be wanted by Premier League clubs, signing them up, giving them a platform then selling them on. It worked for Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama and Virgil van Dijk, and Dembele would be the most spectacular example it.

Even though Dembele moved to Celtic last summer, there was never any doubt to those who know him best that he would end up in the Premier League. He has always made brave and far-sighted career decisions, not least when he left Paris Saint-Germain for the Fulham academy at the age of 16. Plenty of players leave Europe for English academies but few turn themselves into reliable first-team players within three years, especially in an environment as testing as the bad end of the Championship.

It was there that Dembele showed off the pace and poise that there had been glimpses of in Fuham’s youth teams and in the FA Youth Cup. He also showed an absolute desperation to get to the top that does not characterise every young striker in English football. Fulham staff remember how he turned down Christmas parties and away days to work hard on his game and his fitness.

Although everyone else had watched him, especially Arsenal, those performances very nearly took him to White Hart Lane, where Mauricio Pochettino and Paul Mitchell had identified Dembele as a youngster who was fit and fast enough to play their football, pressing from the front, especially while there were still questions about Son Heung-min. Dembele even had a medical at Spurs ahead of the proposed £4m move but it collapsed after quibbling over whether Dembele could return to Fulham on loan for the second half of the season.


 Dembele has continued his rapid development north of the border with Celtic 
 (Getty)

The collapse of the move meant that Dembele could help to keep Fulham in the Championship. Then, rather than go back to France to Monaco, or to the Premier League for expensive training compensation, he went to Celtic instead. But his ambitions were always the same, and he will be in the English top flight soon enough.