Peterborough United Director of Football Barry Fry has stated that it would be “football suicide” if his side were to allow reported Celtic target Siriki Dembele to leave at this stage.
Dembele has been linked with an exit from the Championship club all summer. Celtic have been rumoured to have been interested in the player since March [Give Me Sport]. It’s also been said that Dembele wants to move to Scotland [Peterborough Today].
The player is into the final year of his contract and has been locked in contract talks with his current club. However, there are no signs of an agreement being reached. Peterborough risk losing the player for nothing this summer.
And speaking after Dembele netted a 100th-minute winner against Derby on Saturday, Fry couldn’t have been blunter with his message on the player’s future.
As quoted by Peterborough Today, the United DoF said: “If we sell Siriki then it would be footballing suicide as we would have no time to get a replacement in. It would be the same if we sold Jonson Clarke-Harris. We do already have Joel Randall who is a class player, but he’s only 21 and we bought him for the future as much as the present.
“He will be an exceptional player at Championship level in a couple of years, but Siriki is the finished article now. We have a much better chance of staying up with him than without him. The position of the club is we don’t want bids for Siriki. We want him to stay and if he is still here when the transfer window shuts we will do all we can to get him to sign a new contract with us.”
“But he is in the last year of his contract and we will have to see what bids we get. As of now we haven’t had any and there haven’t even been any enquiries about him. I hope it stays that way.”
Peterborough United take hardline stance on Siriki Dembele; Celtic could strike in January
So it appears that Peterborough United are doing that Peterborough United thing again and insisting their players won’t be sold. Celtic have had poor experiences when dealing with them in the past.
However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t nab Dembele in the near future. Come January, he could be snapped up on a pre-contract. If that was to happen, Posh would undoubtedly be more inclined to listen to offers to buy him outright in the new year over losing him for nothing.
Of course, there’s no real urgency from Celtic to get this one over the line it seems. Fry states that there have been no serious offers put on the table. Interesting considering what stage we’re at in the summer transfer window.
If Celtic want to move now, it could take a fair bit for Peterborough to sell. Labelling a decision “footballing suicide” only to then make that move would be bad for PR. They’ve nailed their colours to the mast here.
However, if the player wants a move to Scotland, that should lead to easy negotiations in January. Even if we had competition for the player’s services, the prospect of playing with his brother Karamoko would hopefully sway things our way.
But it looks all but decided that his next five months will be spent in the Championship. An immediate move couldn’t look more unlikely.
In other news, James McCarthy makes Celtic UEFA squad for Alkmaar clash; Leo Hjelde drops out
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