The Lowdown on Albian Ajeti
Swiss Football journalist Craig King gives Henrik's Tongue the lowdown on Celtic target Albian Ajeti, who is currently in Glasgow to complete a move to the Scottish champions.
With news that Celtic target Albian Ajeti has flown into Glasgow today to complete a £5 million move to the Scottish champions, Swiss Football journalist Craig King gave us the lowdown on the former Basel striker and what he would bring to Neil Lennon’s side.
It seems to be finally happening. Albian Ajeti signing for Celtic FC in the Scottish Premiership after weeks of conflicting stories. The transfer was on, it was off, he was in the city to sign, he wasn’t in the city at all but now it seems he will finally become a Celtic player.
This saga is not surprising to me as I know Ajeti, but undoubtedly it has been frustrating for Celtic fans. So, who just who are you getting from West Ham?
Ajeti comes from a football family. He has a twin brother Adonis who was at Basel but never made a first-team appearance but still plays in Switzerland and an older brother Arlind who also played for FC Basel, now plying his trade in Denmark.
Albian was touted from a young age as being one to watch and the story goes that at age 14, Albian and Adonis were invited to a trial at Barcelona but turned it down due to his mother not wishing to split them up from Arlind. But this was the future the ambitious family saw for the children, as their father dreamed of his sons playing for Barcelona and not Basel.
Nevertheless, he signed for Basel at age 17 in 2014 and made his debut at the end of that season, scoring in his second game against Lausanne. His appearances were sporadic though over the next three seasons with a few goals here and there, but most of his time was spent with the U21’s before a move to Augsburg in Germany materialised soon after. This was far too much too soon for him but as I eluded to earlier, this is an ambitious family and Ajeti is an ambitious player. He felt he was good enough to make that step-up so soon, but his career stalled making just one appearance in the Bundesliga lasting thirty-six minutes.
With Basel not interested in re-signing their former player, he went on loan to St. Gallen and found his feet there with 10 goals in 29 games for a side that finished 7th and scored only 43 goals in total that season. He would play seven further games the following season (17/18) before Basel had seen enough to re-sign him just a few months after St. Gallen had made the deal permanent.
He scored 14 in 25 game on his return at FCB before hitting 17 goals the next season to win the top goalscorer award. It is also worth noting these were two terrible seasons for FCB. They lost their grip on the title and finished runners-up twice, miles behind Young Boys of Berne.
After one game at the start of the 19/20 season (he scored)... West Ham came calling. It was the wrong move once again, and he would’ve been better off with another year of development at Basel but again, I have no doubt his ambition dictated the move as well as the belief that he was good enough - before you take into account the contract he was offered.
Ajeti’s move to West Ham simply did not work out for the player, making just nine appearances in the league. His maximum game time in one match was forty-five minutes with the other eight games totalling a combined 83 minutes. He was given ninety minutes in several cup ties but with no consistent run of games to really showcase his ability.
I’m disappointed that he has been cast off as a flop, given that he has never been given a proper chance in my view.
A move to Celtic, much like his ex-Basel team-mate Mo Elyounoussi, is a chance to rejuvenate his career. I’ve no doubt he will score goals in Scotland. It is not a dissimilar league to Switzerland and he will almost certainly be given time to show what he can do.
Ajeti isn’t the fastest player, but he gets into the positions to score goals and creates space very well. He is good physically and that will transfer well to Scotland I’m sure and makes good decisions for the most part on the ball. That said, he could improve with the ball at his feet but dribbling or running at defenders has never been a big part of his game. While he certainly isn’t the tallest player he can score a header or two.
I am still unsure as to how Celtic will utilize him, as he didn’t play with two up top at Basel very often, but alongside Edouard this is something that could work with both players creating chances for one another.
For me, Ajeti is a Bundesliga quality player in the making and I think Celtic will get that from him.
Thank you to Craig for giving us the lowdown on Ajeti, heres hoping that he can have an impact at Celtic and get his career back on track. If you are interested in Swiss football, follow Craig on Twitter.