Kris Ajer believes that the current Celtic dressing room is a happier one than a year ago under Brendan Rodgers.
The Norwegian was Ronny Deila’s final signing in 2016 with his development accelerated by a loan stint at Kilmarnock after being converted from a midfielder into a central defender.
Ajer faced strong competition at Celtic from Dedryck Boyata, Jozo Simunovic and Filip Benkovic but by the time Rodgers moved to Leicester he had established himself as a first pick.
The lead up to the Irishman’s move back to England will probably never be established but as Davie Moyes recently highlighted it seemed to be an open secret within football that he was on his way out of Celtic.
How that impacted on the Celtic dressing room is hard to measure but there is little doubt that Neil Lennon is committed to the cause with a dressing room united behind their boss.
Discussing the mentality of the current squad Ajer told The Sun:
This is the best dressing room I’ve ever been part of. Since I came to this club everyone has been so united and the new guys who have arrived during the summer have been no different. Everyone has been made to feel that they are included and that makes for a healthy environment.
You need to have different characters to create a good atmosphere. You also need leaders like our captain. Scott Brown has been fantastic and there are so many other Scottish players and a few foreigners who know what it means to play for this massive club.
We have three Norwegians here now, so we’re starting to form our own wee group Seriously, I don’t feel that way at all. Everyone is speaking and laughing with each other. It’s a really good group. There are so many winners in there. That’s the case with this dressing room.
Everyone wants to do better and everyone will raise their hand when they understand they haven’t done well enough but also, nobody will come after you in the dressing room. There will never be that. There is an understanding that, as a group, we want to improve, that we want to become better footballers. That’s fantastic to involved with.
Mo Elyounoussi and young defender Leo Hjelde are the other Norwegians to have joined Ajer at Celtic.