Neil Lennon has revealed that although Celtic new boy Albian Ajeti is making all the right noises at the moment, he isn’t fit enough just yet.
The Bhoys splashed £4.5 million [BBC Sport] on signing the former West Ham United attacker last month.
And despite only managing 66 minutes of football for Celtic so far, the 23-year-old has still managed to score twice in all competitions.
The early signs indicate that Lennon and Nick Hammond have found a very good goalscorer, and the Irish manager is certain that there’s a lot more to come from the Swiss attacker – who is away on international duty – but not until his conditioning is strong enough.
He told the Hoops’ official website: “He just needs to get fitter and conditioned. He’s had a long time out of playing regular football and then had a holiday before he came to us so in terms of his fitness levels, he’s down on that. The fans have seen cameos of what he’s going to bring to the team.
“There’s more of that to come from him. He’s had two weeks now but he has to go away with Switzerland but we’ve made it clear that he needs more conditioning work. He looks like a great player. He still has a bit of catching up in terms of fitness.”
Prior to moving to Glasgow, Ajeti hadn’t played a competitive, senior game of football since January, in West Ham’s FA Cup defeat by West Brom.
But even with a lot of rust, he’s clearly already a level above some Premiership defenders and it’ll be fascinating to see how effective he is when he’s punching at 100 hundred percent.
Celtic, who sit six points behind Rangers with two games in hand, are away to Ross County next Saturday.
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