ALAN Curbishley has asked Celtic supporters to temper their expectations of Wednesday night's Champions League goal hero Moussa Dembele.
The former Charlton Athletic and West Ham manager was technical director at Fulham as the Frenchman took his first tentative steps into British football and feels the player would have benefited from another season in the low key surroundings of Craven Cottage this summer instead of making his big move to Parkhead.
The 20-year-old, who scored 17 goals for Fulham last year, is off and running as a Celtic player after the composed injury-time spot kick which completed a 3-2 aggregate win against Kazakh champions Astana and clinched the club's place in the Champions League play-off round but the 58-year-old feels he still has plenty to learn.
READ MORE: Celtic return to negotiating table for Aston Villa winger Scott Sinclair
"He is very quick and strong but I think he needed to do another year at Fulham before he moved onto a club like Celtic," said Curbishley, speaking to publicise the launch of his new book, Game Changers.
"At Celtic he has to produce right away and it is quickly forgotten that he is still just a youngster. I think he would have been given the benefit of the doubt a bit more if he stayed at Fulham but sometimes the move comes along and you have to take it. While he had a fantastic season last year he is still learning the game and I think that has to be remembered.
READ MORE: Celtic return to negotiating table for Aston Villa winger Scott Sinclair
"Dembele is a goal scorer and I think he will do well but people have to understand that he is not the finished article by far," Curbishley added. "He can go missing in games a little bit like most young players do. He will score goals but for his all round game I think he possibly needed to stay at Fulham a little bit longer.
"For now he still just has to get used to what it means to be a Celtic player. That is one thing Sir Alex Ferguson used to say - it is one thing being a good player but can you be a Manchester United player? The same goes for big clubs like Celtic and Rangers."
The Parkhead side will learn the task which awaits them in the final phase of Champions League qualifying today, as they look to return to the group stages for the first time in three years. Their prospective opponents are Hapoel Be'er Sheva, FC Copenhagen, Ludogorets, Dinamo Zagreb and Dundalk.
"It is the final step now, there were always going to be three tough rounds," said Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers. "But up here the guys who have experience of it, say that sometimes this round [versus Astana] is the most difficult. The shorter distance to travel the better. But we will just see which opponent comes and take it from there."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel