Former Celtic head scout David Moss has revealed that Everton contacted him during the summer transfer window to ask about Hoops star striker Moussa Dembele.
The Goodison Park outfit were very much keen on replacing Romelu Lukaku after selling him to Manchester United, and wanted to know if the French youngster was good enough to fill the shoes of the Belgian.
Moss recommended Dembele to Celtic having been impressed by his performances at Fulham, and despite urging Everton to go ahead with a £30million bid, they failed to.
The English scout told SportsMail: ‘Everton were a club who phoned me up about him. They said: “David, what do you think?” I said: “Don’t even blink, don’t even think about it, sign him. It’s a no-brainer”.
‘If I was in charge of a Premier League club I would have moved for Moussa at the end of last season. ‘Anybody who knows Moussa knows he has a big-game mentality. He is a natural goalscorer.
‘With all this money awash in the Premier League I am at a loss as to why clubs didn’t take him. But they haven’t because they don’t like Scottish football or ‘he can’t do this or he can’t do that. If you really know your football you know he should have been signed.
‘Back in the summer Moussa had a hamstring injury – clubs could possibly have got him for £20m or £25m. Now he’s back fit and scored a 12-minute hat-trick for France under-21s in midweek. If you get Moussa Dembele for £30m now you have won a watch.’
The 21-year-old notched 32 goals in 49 games across all competitions for the Scottish giants last term, helping them to a domestic treble.
Dembele has continued his impressive form this season, scoring 6 goals in 12 matches.
He made the French national team provisional squad list during the international break, and is with an outside chance of making the team to Russia 2018 World Cup if he impresses France manager Didier Deschamps enough.
If Dembele continues finding the back of the net with reckless abandon like he has done since arriving Parkhead, it’ll be hard for the club to hold on to him beyond next summer.
