Ousmane Dembele is outscoring Mo Salah as Liverpool face PSG at worst time with Frenchman finally coming into his own
OUSMANE DEMBELE is one of the most expensive footballers of all time.
The Paris Saint-Germain star has won four league titles, lifted domestic cups in three countries and played in a World Cup final.
Yet the France forward has never made much of an impression on English football.
But that could be about to change as Dembele heads into a Champions League clash with Liverpool in the form of his life.
The 27-year-old has outscored even Kop hero Mo Salah in the past three months as he and PSG grow in confidence that they can finally end their long wait for European glory.
Dembele scored yet another goal as PSG warmed up for Wednesday’s Liverpool clash in the French capital with a 4-1 demolition of Lille on Saturday.
And he is stepping out of the shadow of fellow France forward Kylian Mbappe, who left Paris for Real Madrid in the summer.
When Dembele joined Barcelona from Borussia Dortmund in 2017, the deal — worth up to £138million — was the second biggest in football history, behind only the £200m that PSG had just spent on Neymar.
Yet despite winning three LaLiga titles in six seasons with Barca, Dembele struggled to live up to expectations at the Camp Nou, partly because of injuries and the club’s financial crisis.
It is only now, after returning to France in 2023 to replace Neymar again — this time at PSG — that he seems to be fulfilling the potential he showed as a precocious teenager.
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Masour Ousmane Dembele was 13 when he was spotted by Stade Rennais and made his senior debut for them in November 2015 when aged 18.
Mikael Silvestre — the former Manchester United, Arsenal and France defender — was an adviser to the club’s president.
And after Dembele scored a hat-trick against Nantes in March 2016, Silvestre compared him to “a young Cristiano Ronaldo”, having watched the Portugal maestro emerge at Old Trafford.
Barcelona and a host of Premier League clubs, including Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea, were tracking Dembele.
But it was Dortmund who snapped him up in the summer of 2016 in a deal worth about £30m.
Dembele rewarded Dortmund’s faith, on and off the pitch.
In a stellar campaign he was the Bundesliga rookie of the year and scored crucial goals in the semi-final and final of the German cup as the club claimed their first trophy for five years.
Dembele earned his first senior caps for France and claimed a first international goal in a 3-2 friendly win over England.
Barcelona had seen enough to follow up their earlier interest and sign the 20-year-old in that deal worth up to £138m — the same fee they would spend on Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho later in the season.
That sort of spending would come back to haunt both club and player.
And Dembele, handed the No 11 shirt just vacated by Neymar, had a sticky start.
He picked up a hamstring injury early in the season that kept him out for more than three months.
And that was to be the story of his six seasons in Catalonia.
For each of his three LaLiga titles, there was at least one serious hamstring complaint and overall he missed 784 days with 14 different injuries
Barca boss Xavi once claimed that Dembele could be “the best player in the world”.
But that sounded like wishful thinking.
Then the club were forced to let Lionel Messi leave in 2021 because of their growing financial problems. In 2022, Dembele renewed his contract but on terms that reportedly cut his salary by 40 per cent.
And despite him playing his part in the title win of 2022-3, Barcelona ended up selling the forward to PSG for £43.5m.
It was deja vu all over again for Dembele. Days after he joined the Paris side he inherited Neymar’s No 10 shirt when the Brazilian joined the talent exodus to Saudi Arabia.
Dembele scored in the French cup final win over Lyon that sealed a domestic Double and made key contributions to PSG’s run to the semi-finals of the Champions League.
But his six goals in 42 appearances were eclipsed, on and off the pitch, by club and international team-mate Mbappe.
France captain Mbappe scored 44 goals in 48 games but even that achievement was overshadowed by the constant speculation about his future.
That ended with confirmation that he would be joining Real Madrid on a free transfer.
So at the start of this season, Dembele once more faced the challenge of replacing an acknowledged superstar.
“The best thing I’ve done was not letting Ousmane play in London [at Arsenal]. That day everyone criticised me.
PSG boss Luis Enrique
And this time he is delivering, thanks in part to a bit of tough love from Paris Saint-Germain boss Luis Enrique.
Dembele was dropped for the Champions League trip to Arsenal in early October because, in Enrique’s words, he had “not respected nor complied with the obligations and requirements of the team”.
It did not immediately look like a masterstroke of man-management from the former Barcelona and Spain boss.
Dembele struggled for both goals and assists before being sent off in the 1-0 defeat at Bayern Munich that left PSG facing elimination from the Champions League before the knockout stage.
But since the start of December, no one in Europe’s big five leagues — not even Egyptian king Salah — has scored more goals than Dembele.
His haul of 18 in 13 appearances includes back-to-back hat-tricks, in the 4-1 win over Stuttgart that earned progress in the Champions League and the 5-2 Ligue 1 victory over Brest.
Enrique said: “You’d have to ask him what he ate for Christmas!
“The best thing I’ve done was not letting Ousmane play in London [at Arsenal].
“That day everyone criticised me. It was, by far, the best decision I’ve taken this year, but Dembele did the rest of the work.”
Two more Dembele goals against Brest again in the first leg of the Champions League play-off set PSG well on their way to Wednesday’s clash with Liverpool and Salah.
And the club where Messi, Neymar and Mbappe all failed to deliver that longed-for European title has new hope with their new hero.