Karamoko Dembele!!

It's the club that has an attitude Problem, not him

 

Do you trust Lenny's judgement on this after the way he was happy to let Rogic leave in the Summer & froze Soro out the starting 11 for nearly a year when his talent is obvious?

 

Nah I trust my own eyes. Guy looks smaller than most 14 year olds.

 

He's blatantly not signing a new deal and has been frozen out. He probably feels he was being frozen out before refusing to sign a new deal.

Shouldn't have happened.

 

He got a goal & assist against a near Hibs first team in pre season, if he was as small as you say would he have been able to make that kind of impact against such a side?

 

He's not signing a new deal because he's been treated terribly in relation to a lack of first team opportunities since he signed a 2 and a half year professional contract on his 16th birthday. This isn't a Feruz situation, Feruz left without ever committing himself to the club professionally, Karamoko did commit himself despite having a number of big suitors interested in him because he obviously felt at the time that he would have had more of a chance of featuring for our first team as opposed to a team like Barca, Man City etc.

Sadly it's not worked out that way which I just put down to poor squad management, Karamoko isn't the only player to have suffered this fate under Lenny, Soro did until very recently, Connell, Rogic last season, Oko-flex, Turnbull, Henderson, Harper plus others.

I honestly can't blame him for wanting to leave given his lack of opportunity, he's been more than patient enough. Plus there are many 17 year olds around the world playing for top clubs in big leagues, for me his age is no excuse for such a lack of game time.

 

Not saying he isnt extremely talented, but hes also extremely small, and needs some bulk added to his body to withstand * professional football, not just pre season play arounds.

 

I agree and disagree to an extent.

Certainly he is smaller than the average player and could do with some more growth. He's still only 17 and has another couple years of growing at least anyway.
He has also most certainly bulked out a bit since we first saw him to the Hibs game at pre season.

To also counter, he isn't the smallest player to ever play football in a perceived rougher league.
For one simple example, Puig at Barcelona is only 2cm taller, looks a slighter frame and at 21 most certainly isn't going to get any taller at all. Yet he's getting game time and being roughed around and coping quite fine with it.

Soro is equally only 6cm taller and actually needs to play in a more combative position and copes fine.

I'm totally for understanding some players do need to bulk up (klimala has shown how much of a difference that can be. Johnston and Tierney previous as well), but some times it isn't the be all and end all.
And simply put, we won't know for sure if he can develop the strength to overcome the perceived height issue of we don't at least give the lad a chance.



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Joe Allan is also 168cm (1 mode than dembele) and Alexis Sanchez 169cm.

They've managed quite fine.

Again, he's 17 his frame isn't fully built out but it clearly is getting there and the best way to get him to grips with bulking out more is to be playing him against these sides he needs to be stronger for.

Again, klimala thought he was fine till he had a 3 month run in the side and realise the work he needed to do.

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Martin Odegaard got plenty of first team football at an early age. If anything that hastened his departure. Anybody who knows the football world should have known that this guy will be off at the first opportunity if a "big team" comes in for him.

 

Done ourselves no favors in hardly giving him any first team minutes & he's been eligible to play with the first team since his 16th birthday in February 2019

 

Not sure why we didn't look to put him out on loan to get him that game time. Possibly to do with the type of game we play and the number of hammer throwers in some of the potential places who might have taken him.

But something imaginative like Hendersons loan to Rosenberg might have worked.

Looks to be too late now and if he's leaving in order to get game time I find that hard to criticise.

 

No disrespect but I am not buying the whole needs to bulk up thing the boy is ripped in the leg department compared to Johnstone and he doesn’t struggle for an appearance


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And Johnston's knee keeps catching the boys head.

 

He could easily have gotten a good loan to league 1 or a Scottish Premiership team. Stupid not sending him out if you are not even prepared to give him game time in cup matches or last season when we were 2 or 3 up. With 5 subs a game this season there has been no excuse. He will leave, do well and Lennon outright * it.

 

Dembele already turned down a load of big clubs to sign his professional deal here so the idea that he’s leaving at the ‘first opportunity’ is nonsense.

 

Would you be surprised if he did leave? He's played 4 games for us, and he turns 18 in February. He is a winger but Lennon plays people out of position ahead of him. I would be * off if I was him.

 

The backwards mentality of Scottish football is plain to see in this thread.

 

That wasn’t what I was saying.

It’s been said he’ll leave at the ‘first opportunity’ when he’s already turned down loads of clubs to sign professional terms here.

He’ll leave because he’s not getting an opportunity, to compare it to Odegaard doesn’t make any sense.

 

He’s 17, and was coming into the team, then went out of the picture and after that didn’t play particularly well in the development team.

And, if you go by rumours, which could be absolute pish but sounds believable to me, he started shouting for gametime rather than outperforming others for gametime.

He was working for a place before he got his debut, the likes of Oxoflex was shouting for a place. You need to earn it, theres a reason Henderson and Welsh and other youth players are on the bench just now.

He’s probably going to be away end of the season, but he should be treated like we’re not giving him a place just because we want him to sign a new contract. That could be devastating because he is supremely talented.