The best thing Alban Ajeti has done in his recent career is to go out on loan and start playing regular football again. It is not going to happen for him at Celtic Park. That much is clear. I understood in part why we signed him in the first place. I don’t understand why he’s been at our club as long as he has, since he’s never looked all that hot.
The curious thing is that I am not convinced that Ajeti is a bad player. On the contrary, I think he’s probably a pretty decent one. But he isn’t close to be the sort of player who would fit into this system of ours, and I’m not convinced that any of the systems we’ve played and in which he’s featured were ideally suited to him either.
I’ll tell you what I’ve always suspected about Ajeti; he’s never going to be successful in a single striker system. He always seemed, to me, like a penalty box footballer who depended on a partner beside him, a big guy preferably to rough up defenders and knock the ball down for him. He does have a predatory instinct, but not in the style of Giakoumakis.
Let’s be honest, we all know that he wouldn’t be the first player we signed at around about that time who plainly did not fit into the system. I will talk, later today, very briefly about Patryk Klimala in another piece.
He is a sterling example.
So too was Temu Pukki, who has proved in England what he already had in Germany; play to his strengths and he’ll get you goals.
I wonder if the same won’t prove to be true about Ajeti somewhere down the line.
Put him in the right team, in the right system, and watch as he comes to life.
But it won’t be at Parkhead. For this is already, clearly, another dream that has died on the vine. I wish the guy luck in his future career. Indeed, if we’re to get any money for him at all someone has to be willing to see past his lack of form these past few years.
Even if he were to go on and score a barrow load of goals out on loan, it’s finished at Celtic.
We’ve moved on and he inevitably will too. It just didn’t work.