Brighton boss Chris Hughton refuses to rule out January bid for £30m-rated Celtic striker Moussa Dembele

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Brighton boss Chris Hughton refused to rule out a January bid for Celtic striker Moussa Dembele.

As Sportsmail first revealed, the English Premier League club are prepared to smash their existing transfer record to enhance their hopes of signing the France Under-21 international. 

Celtic have slapped a £30million price-tag on the 21-year-old’s head and have no need to sell.

Celtic's Moussa Dembele is attracting the interest of Brighton and several other English clubs

However, prepared to test the water by opening the bidding at £20m plus a sell-on clause and a promise of first-team football to the player himself, Hughton said of Dembele: ‘He is a very good player and he has had a very good season, but he’s not our player.

‘He is one of probably 100 names you could mention that, if I had an opportunity to want them, then you probably would.

‘But he’s not our player, like anyone else you could throw into the mix. We’ll work as hard as we can in this period of time leading into January.

‘If anything happens in January, it will happen because it is right and the processes leading into it would be right.’

The striker is valued at £30m by Celtic, but Brighton are set to test their resolve in January

Everton have also been heavily linked with Dembele after seeking a reference from former Celtic scout David Moss in the summer.

Brendan Rodgers has already secured a £900,000 deal for German defender Marvin Compper and wants to add St Mirren winger Lewis Morgan and Dundee defender Jack Hendry to his squad.

Admitting that the arrival of Compper could see the likes of Erik Sviatchenko leave in search of first-team football next month, the Celtic boss admitted: ‘There will naturally be players who have not been playing who will be looking to move on to get games.

‘It (defence) was an area we wanted to strengthen, so, obviously, there will be less opportunities for some guys.

‘Virtually everyone knows their situation in the squad. I always try to stabilise the emotion of players, so they know where they are at.

‘It allows the clubs to go on and the players and their agents to get on with trying to organise moves.

‘It allows them to come in every day knowing where their future is, how hard they need to work. If it’s here, great. If not, they need to prepare for the next move.

‘It’s going to be constant over the course of January. We’d like to have the players we want in for that period and the club are great at tying moves up.’

Marvin Compper's arrival could see Erik Sviatchenko leave in search of first-team football

Rodgers, meanwhile, says Partick Thistle’s Gary Fraser sought him out to apologise for smashing the ball into the Celtic crowd at point-blank range.

The incident, in the closing stages of Thistle’s 2-0 defeat on Wednesday night, angered Celtic fans — with skipper Scott Brown and Stuart Armstrong also remonstrating with the 23-year-old.

The Jags midfielder phoned the affected supporter, Kerry Lennon, to apologise yesterday after a show of contrition to Celtic’s manager after the match.

‘I haven’t seen it as of yet,’ said Rodgers. ‘But when I was coming down the stairs after the press conference, he (Fraser) was there.

He actually waited to apologise to me. I said to him: “You can’t be doing that”.

‘But at least he was man enough to do that. He said: “I didn’t mean to do that, I had actually meant to hit the boards”.

‘I said: “Well, you have got to work on your shooting then”. If he says that and I haven’t seen it, I’m sure it’s something he won’t do again.’

Gary Fraser apologised to Brendan Rodgers after firing a football into the Celtic crowd

Jags manager Alan Archibald initially defended his player.

In a club statement issued yesterday, however, Fraser apologised for letting the club down, saying: ‘I can only apologise both to the supporter I struck and everyone else who was at the ground. I don’t know what I was thinking, it was a moment of madness and stupidity from me.

‘Of course it should never have happened but I absolutely did not mean to hit the ball into the stand and certainly had no intention of hitting anyone with it.

‘It reflected badly on me and on the team and I feel like I’ve let down the club. As soon as it happened, I realised what I had done and was devastated. All I can do is say that I am genuinely sorry and that is why I wanted speak to the supporter myself today.’

Booked by referee Alan Muir, Fraser will face no further action from the SFA.