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Mark Hill has important advice for Karamoko Dembele

General view inside Celtic Park (Reuters)
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Celtic youngster Karamoko Dembele is making the headlines at the moment.

General view outside Celtic Park before the game

Celtic youngster Mark Hill has told The Scottish Sun that Karamoko Dembele should not expect it easy against older players.

Dembele has been making the headlines in recent days for a remarkable achievement at the tender age of 13.

The teenager made his debut for the Celtic Under-20 side against their Heart of Midlothian counterparts on Monday evening.

General View of Celtic park before the game

Hill, who is 18 years of age, played in a second-string game for Hamilton Academical back in April 2011.

The teenager was 13 at the time, and he has warned Dembele that players who are six or seven years older than him are not going to go easy on him.

“I was big for my age group, but Karamoko’s quite small,” Hill told The Scottish Sun. “He should get himself in the gym if he can, even if he’s only 13.

“Accies got me in the gym at that age and I was lifting small weights. When you are that small you will be a target.

“Other boys won’t care about his age as they are trying to impress to get into their own first teams. They are going to go hard into tackles and send him up into the air.

“That kind of thing doesn’t really happen in training, but in games Karamoko might have to get used to taking a few hits.”

General view of Celtic Park

Dembele is a promising and talented young footballer, and the fact that he was considered good enough to make his Under-20 debut at just 13 years of age shows just how highly he is rated by the Celtic coaches.

As Hill notes, the teenager will get rough treatment from opponents even if they are much older than him, but he will have to get used to that.

General view inside Celtic Park