The second major transfer deal of the summer has been done, and I want to thank this site’s good friend Phil Mac Giolla Bhain for telling me, early on, not to give up on this deal.
When the press was reporting that he didn’t fancy Celtic and that he was holding out for something else, Phil told me the issue was in London and that he was arguing with West Ham over money he was owed. At no point did Ajeti believe that Celtic Park was a lesser destination.
So it has proved, because the deal is done and he’s a Celtic player and not on some one season loan but as a £5 million purchase which measurably strengthens our first team squad and even our starting eleven. He is the second such signing – the third if you include fellow Swiss Elyounoussi – who does that. But like Barkas he is now our player.
So what can we expect from him? Well, to put it bluntly; goals.
He is a Swiss international who had a sterling scoring record including in the Champions League with Basle.
He and Elyounoussi have played together before and should have no trouble fitting into a partnership.
So why didn’t it work at West Ham? A couple of reasons spring readily to mind, the first of them being that West Ham isn’t exactly what most of us would call a “properly functioning club.” To term them a shambles is to be too kind, in fact.
Changes of manager, changes of playing style, changes of personnel … he never at any point got to settle, because the club around him was in constant turmoil. And sometimes a move just doesn’t work out anyway; Sutton was a great footballer but you’d never have known it from the spell he spent at Chelsea.
Every goal-scorer has these peaks and valleys.
Ajeti comes to us hungry and with a point to prove.
He is a perfect foil for Edouard and lets the manager go two up front, even as we wait for Griffiths to either buck up or ship out. If we’re still being linked with strikers after today you’ll know Celtic is very much thinking about the latter option and you can take it to the bank that Leigh is gone.
But for now, welcome, Albian, to the show that never ends, to the Greatest Club in the World, and to a chance to make history of the best kind … immortality for all the right reasons, as part of the Team That Won The Ten. You are going to love it here.
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