Ange Postecoglou has revealed that his transfer activity in the transfer market has changed from active to agile as he keeps an open mind on any possible opportunities to improve his squad further over the next month or so ahead of the window closing.
The Celtic manager is also mindful of fringe players still at the club who are probably well aware that they are surplus to requirements and won’t be seeing too many opportunities for first team action in the new season that begins on Sunday at Celtic Park when Aberdeen are the visitors for the Flag Day, Scottish Premiership opener.
One player who clearly falls into that latter category is Swiss/Albanian striker Albian Ajeti, a £5m signing from West Ham, the club he joined after a successful spell at FC Basel, playing alongside Moi Elyounoussi.
Neil Lennon’s famous eye for a player seemed to have deserted him by the summer of 2020 with Ajeti and Vasilis Barkas costing the best part of £10m and neither providing any significant contribution to the Celtic cause ever since. Both players picked up hefty wage packets too making the hit even harder for the club and more difficult for Ange Postecoglou to sort out the mess.
Barkas has been moved out on loan for a season while Ajeti remains at the club, very much on the outskirts of the manager’s plans for the season ahead. He did get 45 minutes in the opening pre-season match in Austria, playing alongside mostly Celtic B Team players against Austria minnows Wiener Viktoria but looked either disinterested or way off the pace and that will have been noted by the Celtic manager.
Ajeti knows his time at Celtic is up but unless there’s a way out that is financially acceptable to him Celtic will continue to pay the hefty price for the summer 2020 signing.
Ange Postecoglou has given a brief update on Ajeti and on a more positive note, on Reo Hatate who is looking like he is going to be a top performer for Celtic this season. After arriving at Celtic the Japanese midfielder certainly made an instant impact with that goal at Tynecastle that former Celtic keeper Craig Gordon is still likely to be having nightmares about and Reo followed that up with an incredible goalscoring performance against theRangers on 2 February when Celtic caught up, overtook the latest Ibrox club and never looked back all the way to the finishing line.
But Hatate, having played a full season in Japan, admitted he was exhausted and his form quite understandably dipped. Indeed it was surprising at the time that Ange Postecoglou continued to play the midfielder, even after he admitted his fatigue, but there’s clearly been method in that particular piece of Postecoglou madness as the Celtic manager now explains.
On the Albian Ajeti situation Ange, as reported by Scottish Sun, explains why the former Switzerland international dropped out of the squad for the games against Legia Warsaw and Norwich City. “He has a knee problem but trained in Glasgow when we were over in Poland.”
On Ajeti’s future at the club, Ange is clearly looking at an exit that suits both parties. “We will see what happens. There’s still time in this window and there will be some movement.
“We’ve been active bringing players in and we’ve probably shifted the dial to now be agile. We’ll be ready to go either way.”
That could be code for Celtic looking to move on fringe players such as Ajeti and the £7m signing from Toulouse, Christopher Jullien (another high earner at the club), before any additional signings happen. We’ll have to wait and see how that pans out but money talks very loudly in football.
On Hatate Ange said: “Reo needed a break but at the same time I think working through that difficult period last year was good for him. It built resilience into him and he feels fresh now.
“He had a little bit of a setback before the Blackburn game and missed a few days of training. But he’s made up for that and I thought he looked really bright in Poland.”
Overall Ange is looking to keep the promise he made to the support speaking on the park at Paradise on Trophy day when he said Celtic would come back even stronger this season.
“I keep saying we’ve just got to be better than we were last year. We’re not going to be better if we stand still and don’t push these guys further. That includes the ones who were here last year too.
“It’s not just the guys coming in, it’s about the guys from last year going up a level. We want to be able to do that midweek and weekend game with the Champions League in between.”
I don’t think Lennon had anything to do with the Ajeti and Barkas transfers.
I’m thinking Peter Lawwells hands are all over both they moves.