What is going on with Brighton, Celtic and Odsonne Edouard?
It might not be as enthralling as Murder on the Orient Express, but the transfer saga involving Brighton, Celtic and French striker Odsonne Edouard is threatening to turn into a mystery which could have been written by Agatha Christie.
The Albion’s two most reliable sources are Andy Naylor at The Athletic and Brian Owen at The Argus and both have said that the £20 million bid Brighton are being linked with is merely a rumour with no truth behind it.
Their counterpart as Celtic’s most reliable source is Stephen McGowan and he says that Brighton will make a move once the Bhoys’ Champions League qualifier with Midtjylland on Wednesday night is out of the way. This version of events is also being reported by most of the national press both north and south of Hardian’s Wall.
So, which is it? Will Odsonne Edouard end up being the striker who Brighton turn to in an attempt to end their xG nightmare, or has everyone connected with Celtic got the story very wrong?
Public opinion is nearly as split on the issue as the Brexit Referendum from 2016. In a poll we ran on the WAB Twitter account, 46.4 percent of Albion supporters believed that Celtic-friendly journalists and those in the national press would be correct and that a Brighton bid was imminent. 53.6 percent backed Naylor and Owen to be right.
Brighton journalists versus The Rest of the World journalists is the battle for truth that we never knew we needed. Who is making stuff up, who is being misled and what would be the point in misreporting the truth? Here are the possibilities in the Edouard transfer saga.
There is no genuine interest in Odsonne Edouard
The Argus and The Athletic could both be spot on and Brighton do have no interest in Odsonne Edouard. The club might be determined to prove that Neal Maupay, Aaron Connolly, Danny Welbeck or Andi Zeqiri can suddenly be turned into a 10 to 15 goal-a-season striker by Graham Potter and that every supporter and pundit is very wrong when they say a new centre forward is needed.
As the Together BHA podcast said in reply to our poll about whether the rumours would prove to be true: “He (Edouard) would fit the mould perfectly, he’s young, he’s big, strong, quick, and scores goals. He’s got European competition and Scottish football experience, he’s in his last year of his contract and Celtic are willing to sell. He’d be ideal. For that reason no I don’t think we’ll bid.”
Brighton are misleading their sources to keep a deal under wraps
We all know that Brighton exercise a level of control over what is reported in local media. The Argus and Naylor have to stay onside to a degree so that the club do not restrict their future access.
It is for this reason The Argus and The Athletic report every undisclosed transfer fee Brighton as “less than what is being quoted”. This is in the end a futile exercise as once the annual accounts are made public, it is easy to work out who has actually cost what anyway.
Then there is the curious tale of Gus Poyet. One of Brighton’s best ever managers has never been spoken to since his departure from the Amex eight years ago.
Whilst there may be a certain reluctance to drag up the manner of his leaving, you would have thought that The Argus or The Athletic might have marked the 10th anniversary of that brilliant League One title winning season by interviewing Poyet as the man who made it possible.
They might have even sought his opinion on a decade of Lewis Dunk, Poyet after all being the first manager to realise what a special talent Dunk was when pitching him into the first team as a teenager.
Poyet is persona non grata at the Amex and so too the Brighton-friendly press must by-and-large pretend he does not exist too. Not even the passing of time seems to have mellowed the club’s stance on Gus.
If the Albion want a certain angle reported or a story shutdown, they know they can lean on local media to do it for them. Which brings us nicely onto the outright dismissal of any link between Brighton, Celtic and Odsonne Edouard.
Other clubs have been linked with Edouard, including Leicester City and Crystal Palace. Brighton might be hoping that if the story is downplayed, it masks their interest and prebents the Foxes, the Eagles or anyone else for that matter entering the race and potentially driving the price up.
Brighton love to go unnoticed in the transfer market and more often than not, a player only appears in the media linked with the Albion a matter of days before they arrive.
The deal is all-but done before the story becomes public knowledge, as was the case with the £22 million signing of Enock Mwepu (which Naylor and The Argus understood to be much less than was reported).
There is every possibility that a bid for Edouard will be going in. The club just do not want anyone knowing and are relying on their friendly outlets to try and dampen down or supress the story.
Let us hope that is the case as Brighton cannot surely think they can get away without signing a new centre forward this summer and expect to improve sufficiently to avoid another relegation battle?
Celtic are misleading their sources to spark a bidding war
On the other side of the misleading sources coin is the possibility that Celtic are feeding wrong information to their friendly journalists in a bid to spark a bidding war and increase the fee they receive for Odsonne Edouard – precisely the scenario Brighton are trying to avoid.
You can see why they would want to do this. Edouard is now into the last year of his contract, so if Celtic fail to convince him to sign a new deal and they do not complete a sale this summer then they risk him walking away on a free next summer.
The powers that be at Celtic Park will be determined to squeeze every last penny that they can out of Edouard. They might be hoping that putting the word out there that Brighton are about to come in with a £20 million bid will lead Palace into offering £22 million followed by Leicester £25 million.
Whatever the outcome, one set of journalists either in Glasgow or in Brighton are in danger of losing some credibility by the end of the transfer window having staked their position so certainly on a specific outcome.
The Argus and Naylor rarely get things about Brighton wrong, but neither does McGowan at the Scottish Daily Mail when it comes to Celtic.
That is what makes this particular rumour mill so interesting; it is not some teenager with four followers tweeting from their bedroom pretending to be a journalist or an agent. It is a set of well-connected journalists with contrasting information about what is going to happen.
The whole story is a fabrication for clicks
Celtic are one of the biggest clubs in Scotland. Any story involving their star striker is going to be big news. Perhaps the whole thing has been made up to drive tens of thousands of Celtic fans onto websites where they click and view adverts, thus making those outlets carrying the story decent sums of money?
The idea that Edouard to Brighton is clickbait being posted across the internet would have more credence if McGowan was not putting his reputation as the best-connected Celtic journalist on-the-line by leading the story.
Brighton will make a bid for Odsonne Edouard
The outcome that most Brighton fans will be hoping is the case – Naylor and The Argus have it wrong and Brighton are going to make a move for Odsonne Edouard.
Whether he is the correct player is of course a very different debate. Ever since Graeme Smith and Steve Thomson arrived amid much fanfare from the SPL in the late-00’s only to be complete gubbins, here at WAB Towers we have treated any signing from north of the border with suspicion.
Not even Beram Kayal being a roaring success after costing only £250,000 from Celtic in January 2015 has managed to damped the fire of doubt.
Right now though, Edouard must be seen as a player worth taking a chance on. Neal Maupay must play as a second striker in 2021-22 as that is that is the role in which he has looked good enough for the Premier League when supporting Danny Welbeck last season.
Welbeck is great but cannot be expected to play week in, week out. Andi Zeqiri is unproven and Potter seems to like using him anywhere down the left rather than up front – including at left back as we saw in Rangers 0-0 Brighton.
Percy Tau is in a similar boat to Zeqiri in that nobody knows if he is good enough for the top flight yet. And Aaron Connolly looks in desperate need of a loan spell in the Championship to rediscover some form, boost his confidence and hopefully help him grow up.
Investing some of the £50 million fee Brighton are set to receive for Ben White in a striker has to be Brighton’s priority between now and the end of the transfer window. For that reason, let us hope that Naylor and The Argus are wrong on Edouard.
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