Switzerland’s loss could turn out to be Celtic’s gain after striker Albian Ajeti decided against joining up with his national side for their matches with Belgium, Spain and Ukraine, preferring instead to remain at Lennoxtown to work on getting his match fitness up to the required levels. And that’s where the Celtic gain comes in.
“For me, this period is very important because it allows me to build my fitness back up,” Ajeti told the new edition of Celtic View. “It was the best decision for me to stay here rather than go away with the national team. I lost a couple of weeks when I was injured and I thought this was the right moment to try and get my fitness back to the level it was before the injury.
“Switzerland played a friendly against Belgium and then played Spain and Ukraine in the Nations League. We have already qualified for the Euros but we had a really tough Nations League group with Germany, Spain and Ukraine. There wasn’t a lot we could expect from those games but we did quite well.
“There’s never a great time for an injury but my injury came at a very bad time. Celtic were winning games and I was at the stage where I felt like I could push myself for 90 minutes. It was a bit of a setback but I’m happy to be back now and trying to work on my fitness.
“The training sessions during the international break have been hard sessions. We’ve been doing some long, hard runs to open up the legs and build the fitness up. There aren’t many players here but we’ve still done a lot of work with the ball.
“I hope to be back to full fitness for the Hibernian game but I’ll still need to get a full 90 minutes to know. I’ve been training really well with the staff here and I’m feeling good. The fitness will come with each game.”
