Ex-Celtic centre-back Alan Stubbs recently joined Chick Young and Kenny Macintyre on the BBC’s Sportsound Scottish Football podcast and the former Hoops man spent some time discussing current Celtic centre-back Kristoffer Ajer during the show.
Ajer, who is currently valued at £3.6m according to Transfermarkt, has been linked with a move away from Parkhead in recent months. Back in April, sports journalist and transfer market expert Nicolo Schira took to Twitter to state that the Premier League’s Arsenal and Leicester City, as well as Serie A side AC Milan, ‘are all interested’ in signing the Norwegian defender.
This alleged interest in Ajer comes after the 22-year-old played a prominent role for the Hoops during their title-winning 2019/20 campaign. The centre-back featured in 28 of Celtic’s 30 Scottish Premiership games that season, accumulating more minutes for the Glasgow-based club in Scotland’s top-flight than all but three other Hoops players last season.
Considering that Celtic had the joint-best defensive record in the league that term, conceding just 19 goals in their 30 league games, it may be fair to say that this shows Ajer may have become a reliable presence at the heart of the Hoops’ defence last season.
Stubbs, who spent five years at Parkhead during his playing career, as per Transfermarkt, discussed Ajer during his recent appearance on the BBC’s Sportsound Scottish Football podcast.
Stubbs said: “He has become a really key player. I think last season he did well, but I think there [were] lapses in concentration in some of the goals that Celtic conceded. I think he’s built up a good relationship with [Christopher] Jullien and I think they complement each other really well.”
Is Ajer a key player for Celtic?
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Considering that the Hoops had the Scottish Premiership’s joint-best defensive record last season and knowing that Ajer was a first-team regular for the club that term, it may be understandable why Stubbs believes “he has become a really key player” for the Glasgow-based club.
With that in mind, the Hoops may need to do their best to fend off the clubs who are allegedly interested in snatching Ajer from Parkhead this summer, as they are set to compete for an unprecedented 10th straight Scottish top-flight title this coming season and Ajer may be expected to play a significant part in that, judging by how regularly he featured for the club last season.