Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers will be in the market to bolster his forward options during the summer transfer window after the club opted not to replace Kyogo Furuhashi in January.
The Scottish giants decided to allow the Japan international to sign for French side Rennes on a permanent deal, before the deadline passed without any replacement through the door.
Kyogo scored ten goals in 22 matches in the Scottish Premiership in the 2024/25 campaign before he moved to Ligue 1, which shows that the Hoops did lose a big goal threat.
Rodgers went with Adam Idah and Daizen Maeda as his two main options in the number nine position for the second half of the season, but the club are now reportedly closing in on a new striker signing.
Celtic set to sign Premier League youngster
The Scottish giants have opted to bring another first-team centre-forward into the building this summer to compete with Idah and Maeda for a spot in the team.
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According to journalist Mark Hendry, Celtic are set to sign Fulham striker Callum Osmand to add to his number nine ranks in the summer transfer window.
The accompanying report from Celts Are Here explains that a medical has already been scheduled for the 19-year-old marksman, who is available for a compensation fee because of his expiring contract at Craven Cottage, as they close in on a deal for him.
It adds that Rodgers views him as a first-team addition to the squad, despite the fact that he is currently an U21 player for Fulham, and the Celtic boss could unearth his next Moussa Dembele with Osmand.
Why Callum Osmand could be the next Moussa Dembele
Back in the summer of 2016, Rodgers arrived at Parkhead and made Dembele his very first signing as the club’s manager from Premier League side Fulham to bolster his number nine options.
The French striker arrived for a compensation fee after his contract at Craven Cottage expired, which is the same path that Osmand looks set to follow this summer if this latest report proves to be accurate.
Dembele, after joining from Fulham, went on to score a staggering 51 goals in 94 games for Celtic before being sold to Lyon in the summer of 2018 for a record fee of £19.7m for a striker in the club’s history, as shown in the table below.
Moussa Dembele
Summer 2018
Lyon
£19.7m
Odsonne Edouard
Summer 2021
Crystal Palace
£14m
Kyogo Furuhashi
January 2025
Rennes
£10m
Mark Viduka
Summer 2000
Leeds United
£7m
Gary Hooper
Summer 2013
Norwich City
£5m
Whilst there is a long way to go before thinking about the kind of fee that Celtic could sell him for, Osmand’s form for the Cottagers at youth level suggests that the potential is there for him to follow even further in Dembele’s footsteps.
The Wales youth international scored 14 goals in all competitions during the 2024/25 campaign, including 11 goals in 18 Premier League 2 games for the U21 side, but did not make his first-team debut for Fulham, as they have Raul Jimenez and Rodrigo Muniz as their frontline options.
Osmand has scored 23 goals in 38 games for Fulham’s U18s and 20 goals in 35 matches for the U21s, which takes him to 43 goals in 73 games overall. That is a return of a goal every 1.70 games on average, compared to Dembele’s 1.84 games per goal during his Celtic career.
Of course, there is no guarantee that he will translate those numbers over to first-team football in Scotland, but there was no guarantee when Rodgers gambled on signing Dembele from Fulham either.
The report from Mark Hendry states that the Celtic boss is a fan of the players and believes that he can make an immediate impact in the first-team, which suggests that he has the same sort of confidence that he had in the Frenchman back in 2016.
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Therefore, the Hoops manager could unearth his next version of Dembele with this transfer, because of his potential as a goalscorer, as well as the practically identical path to Parkhead.