Daily Record journalist Craig Swan has delivered his honest verdict about Celtic defender Kristoffer Ajer.
Swan appeared as a guest on the latest episode of the Record Celtic podcast and the panel discussed numerous issues involving Celtic.
One topic of discussion was Ajer and his abilities. While Swan does believe that Ajer could be moving to a much bigger league, he still has one big weakness in his game.
Ajer has been heavily linked with a move to Milan over the last few months. The Hoops even rejected a bid from the Rossoneri for the Norwegian defender. Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester City had also drawn links with the defender not too long ago.
Is Ajer already the finished product?
Yes
No
Swan believes that while Ajer has progressed, he still needs to improve more when it comes to defending during set-pieces.
The journalist said: “I think everybody realises that Kristoffer Ajer has the tools and the ability to move to a bigger league. He’ll struggle to find a bigger club than Celtic, but he’ll certainly move to a bigger league – one of the top five divisions. But he’s still got a lot of brushing up to do.
“He’s strong, he’s composed, he’s good with the ball at his feet; he’s learned, I think, to stay on his feet longer now – he used to be very rash and dive in. Michael [Gannon] and I were in Rennes when he gave a penalty kick away in the Europa League, just diving in for no reason.
“At the end of the day, set-pieces account for so many goals in football these days, and to me, he doesn’t win enough balls in the box.”
TIF Thoughts on Kristoffer Ajer…
Only six Celtic players have grabbed a better rating than Ajer this season, with the defender picking up a rating of 7.16/10 (as per WhoScored).
This suggests that irrespective of any flaws in his game, Ajer is a very important player for the Hoops and since he’s still only 22, he could still improve in the future.
Because of that, if he does leave in the coming months or years, Celtic should make sure that they get as much as they can from his sale and they demand more than his reported market value of £3.6m.