Pundit Kevin Graham has recently made a claim about Odsonne Edouard and his development at Parkhead so far.
Graham was a guest on the latest episode of ‘A Celtic State of Mind’ podcast and he talked about many issues surrounding the Parkhead side. One thing that he focused on was Edouard and how he has developed at Celtic over the years. The pundit compared him to Moussa Dembele and talked about whether he’s been worth the fee that Celtic shelled out for him.
Edouard had initially arrived at Celtic on loan from Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2017. The Hoops then signed him permanently from the French giants in the summer of 2018 for a fee of £9.27 million (as per Transfermarkt).
Graham talked about how Edouard has proved to be worth the risk that came with how much Celtic signed him for.
He said: “Brendan Rodgers will admit this, that he says Edouard was one of the best young talents that he had seen at his age. So I don’t think it was really a surprise that we did shell out the reported £9 million for him, because that talent was obvious on a daily basis at Lennoxtown when Brendan and the coaching staff were looking at him, and it was also maybe an ‘easy gamble’, because even though we’ve paid the £9 million, we will get more than £9 million back for him.
Has Edouard turned out to be a better player than Dembele?
Yes, Edouard is better
No, Dembele was better
“Yes, it cuts into the profit, but it is more of a sure thing that we would be able to sell him on unless he was an unmitigated disaster, which, obviously he’s proved not to be. He has actually proved probably to be better than Dembele.”
TIF Thoughts…
During his time at Celtic so far, Edouard has made 129 appearances in all competitions. He has found the back of the net 64 times and has racked up 31 assists as well (as per Transfermarkt).
Dembele, on the other hand, played 94 games in all competitions for the Hoops and scored 51 goals while also grabbing 18 assists on the way (as per Transfermarkt).
This shows how important both of these players have been at Parkhead. While Edouard had arrived for a fee of £9.27 million, his current value stands at £13.50 million and going by his goalscoring numbers, he has developed pretty well at Parkhead. Fans should be glad that he’s been well worth the fee that Celtic shelled out for him.