Six EPL clubs have been credited with an interest in signing Karamoko Dembele in the summer.
The former Celtic youth team player recently turned 21 and is finally living up to expectations at the unlikely setting of Blackpool, slap bang in the middle of League One where physicality is the main requirement to get through a campaign of 46 matches.
Dembele quietly left Celtic at the end of the 21/22 season without having started a senior match, a dozen appearances off the bench had failed to live up to expectations with a brutal attack in a pre-season ‘friendly’ halting any chance to impress Ange Postecoglou.
French football seemed like a good platform to get his career moving but 164 minutes over 15 matches coming off the bench failed to advance the promise shown on the You Tube clips that went viral and created so much interest.
When Celtic got Dembele signed onto a three year professional contract it was viewed as a significant deal but injury, a pandemic and managerial changes were all factors in his stalled development.
Going out on loan to Blackpool appeared to be the start of the slippery slope downwards that many hyped teenagers go through but according to HITC Dembele could be playing in the EPL next season.
HITC reports:
His reward for a series of dazzling displays could be a move to the Premier League, Everton, West Ham United, Fulham, Brentford and Wolves all keeping tabs on a player who was linked with the likes of Chelsea before eventually leaving Celtic on a free transfer back in 2022.
Dembele has seven goals and 12 assists for Blackpool. Still only 21, the former England youth star has clearly not lost the devastating dribbling ability that made him such a YouTube sensation north of the border. There is also interest, HITC has been told, from a Nottingham Forest side who came up against Dembele’s Blackpool side in the FA Cup in January.
Leicester City, Southampton and Leeds United – three clubs with Premier League ambitions – are also interested.
HITC isn’t the greatest of sources but they do go in very strongly on this, one team linked could be flying a kite but there are some impressive clubs listed, all of them with thorough scouting and recruitment operations.
It would be an unexpected turn if Dembele left Brest for the EPL, it is rare for promising teenagers to reverse the slow realisation that the expectations expressed at 14 or younger aren’t going to be realised as they play out a mundane career dogged by questions about ‘what if’ alongside articles about Whatever Happened to…
Karamoko does have the benefit of his older brother Siriki playing at Peterborough, Bournemouth and Birmingham while his own CV includes England youth team appearances alongside Jude Bellingham.
Getting ninth placed Blackpool into a play off position is the immediate goal but as a spin off it seems that the demand that was on him coming through the Celtic Academy has been revived with playing in the EPL next season a real possibility.
CLICK HERE for reaction to Crawford Allan rumours.
CLICK HERE for Dembele profile of minutes and appearances.
