Report: Marseille want Celtic striker Dembele to replace £13m flop

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Scottish Premiership giants Celtic face a battle to hold on to Moussa Dembele again with Marseille willing to spend big.

Marseille may not be challenging for the Ligue 1 crown any time soon; PSG’s petro-dollars have put pay to the idea of a title race in France’s top flight, but the resurgence project is certainly starting to take shape.

Financed by American businessman Frank McCourt, Marseille have put the mid-table mediocrity of last season behind them to currently sit third in Ligue 1. But with Rudi Garcia’s number one centre-forward Valere Germain mustering just six goals in 27 games, it seems OM believe that a prolific striker could be the final piece of the jigsaw.

Le Foot (14 March, front page) claim that there is a number of candidates on Marseille’s shortlist including Atletico Madrid forward Kevin Gameiro and Porto powerhouse Vincent Aboubakar.

And it seems that the southern side are yet to accept defeat in their chase of Celtic’s France U21 ace Moussa Dembele either.

The club’s president Jacques-Henri Eyraud confirmed in August of last year that Marseille were interested in the £20 million-rated Dembele, after he scored 32 goals in his debut season in Scotland to fire Celtic to the domestic treble.

And despite hitting the net just 13 times in 31 games during a relatively subdued second campaign, it seems Marseille would be keen to bring the former PSG talent back to France. It is understood that he would be signed to replace Kostas Mitroglou, the Greek flop who has just four league goals since joining from Benfica for £13 million last summer, as reported by FootMercato.

With plenty of interest from the Premier League in Dembele, and with a number of other strikers on Marseille’s shopping list, however, it seems a lot of hurdles would have to be cleared before this transfer could happen.