Moussa Dembele’s move from Fulham to Celtic was a huge success for both parties.
In Brendan Rodgers’ first summer, the arrivals of Dembele and Scott Sinclair transformed Celtic’s attack which had previously been carried by Leigh Griffiths.
Dembele was just 20 in his first season at Celtic and racked up 32 goals. He was even linked with a £40 million move to Chelsea just six months into his spell.
He had scored 17 for Fulham in the Championship the season prior, playing alongside Scotland striker Ross McCormack.
But McCormack has now made an eye-opening claim that fellow Fulham striker Hugo Rodallega was ‘100 times’ better to play with than Dembele.
Ross McCormack on playing with Celtic hero Moussa Dembele
McCormack has made his Celtic allegiance clear, despite coming through at Rangers as a young player.
But unlike most Celtic fans, his memories of Dembele aren’t all positive.
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Ross McCormack
Ross McCormack – Credit: Fulham FC
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Dembele was a teenager in his Fulham days, and was an understandably raw player. But for McCormack, there was no question over who was better to play with between him and Rodallega.
He told the Fulham Fix podcast: “Rodallega was 100 times better to play with than Moussa. He was a million times better to play with.
“Moussa was very quick, very powerful… but to an extent, he was also very selfish. Not selfish as in… just a typical striker, where a lot of the times he’ll shoot.
“Whereas me and Hugo had this – and we never even spoke about it – understanding. A lot of times when I was through on goal away to Brentford, I squared it with my left foot and Hugo scored. I could easily have went in and took that myself.
“Hugo was the same as me: ‘If someone’s in a better position, I don’t care, I’ll give him the ball.’
“Whereas strikers who are just hellbent on scoring goals, probably like Moussa was – Cauley Woodrow was probably more in the me and Rodallega camp – but the way Moussa was, it was frustrating at times.”
McCormack left the Cottagers in the same summer as Dembele, moving onto newly-relegated Aston Villa.
Moussa Dembele’s Celtic spell
It’s a heated debate considering the impact of Odsonne Edouard and Kyogo Furuhashi, but some Hoops fans would still say that Dembele is the best striker to play for Celtic since Henrik Larsson.
Blessed with incredible strength, Dembele was unplayable on his day. He marked his first Glasgow Derby with a perfect hat-trick that will be spoken about for decades.
As Rodgers led Celtic to an invincible treble followed by a double treble the season after, Dembele was an integral part of his squad.
His £20 million exit to Lyon in 2019 was not well handled, but he would go on to score 70 goals for the French giants before moving on to Saudi Arabia.