Karamoko Dembele’s goal of being part of the Celtic first-team for pre-season training appears to have been achieved.
The Celtic youth sensation burst onto the scene towards the end of last season. After only being promoted to the reserve team back in February, Dembele made his Hoops debut against Hearts on trophy day. His second-half cameo appearance wowed supporters, as his tricky footwork and direct style of play nearly reaped a debut goal on several occasions.
Dembele was then thrown into the Scottish Cup final squad one week later. All this at just 16-years of age. And the youngster would go on to explain how his new goal was to be part of first-team training this pre-season (Celtic View. Volume 54, Issue 43, Page 23)
If yesterday was anything to go by, that’s exactly what young Dembele has achieved. Celtic put up a variety of different training videos as the squad returned to Lennoxtown yesterday. In one of them, Dembele was clearly seen doing running and stretching drills with the first-team. You can view the video below:
Is a place in Austria and Switzerland camp brewing?
We’re not going to pretend we’re privy as to how Neil Lennon selects his pre-season training camp squad. Whether Dembele has done enough to book a seat on the plane to Austria isn’t known to supporters. But as it stands, he looks in a good place.
It will be interesting to see just how many youngsters make the training camp too. Armstrong Oko-Flex was another to make his squad debut last season. Whether he gets to head off with the rest of the squad is also an interesting thought.
But supporters will mainly be looking to see more from Dembele this season. His debut left many of us itching to see him again, as he incredibly proved that he can cut it against Premiership opposition at such a young age.
If he is involved, of course, we can’t expect him to feature every week. Celtic will need to make sure they manage such a young prodigy with as much care as they can. Making sure he doesn’t burn out or run himself into an injury is vital at his age.
But what this represents is yet another positive step in Dembele’s development. It also shows the trust Neil Lennon appears to have in the youngster too. Remember, Lennon initially said he would have no problem featuring Dembele in the Scottish Cup final last month (Celtic TV). The trust is clearly there.
And, with the youngster making the first-team pool for pre-season, it looks like we’ll be seeing more of him in the near future too.
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