Chris Sutton has predicted that the fringe Celtic star will be given a start by Neil Lennon against the Rangers on Saturday.
There is no denying that Neil Lennon has a heavily-weakened Celtic squad to pick his team from when Steven Gerrard’s Rangers side come visiting on Saturday. And one of the positions that has been affected the most is up front.
Odsonne Edouard tested positive after reporting to France under-21 duty at Clarefontaine. As a result, he is expected to be out on Saturday although there has not been any confirmation of that yet. Albian Ajeti on the other hand continues to recover from an injury that he suffered against Hibernian in the process of scoring. As a result, he is in a race against time to get fit.
And Leigh Griffiths has also had his struggles this season, featuring in only one game as a substitute. He did score on the day though and Neil Lennon would be hoping that he is ready to walk out on to the pitch on Saturday from the very beginning.
In the eyes of Chris Sutton though, there’s one Celtic man who Neil Lennon can pick at this point of time. As reported by the Daily Record, he said:
"“That’s the issue, you can’t have somebody up top who’s not fit enough and not going to cause a problem. So I think, at this moment in time, Neil’s hand looks like it’s pretty much forced into playing Klimala.“If I’m honest, when I first saw Klimala, I didn’t think that he was anywhere near up to the mark.“But he’s growing on me and I think he’s growing on the Celtic fans. They know they’re going to get a good, honest shift in, they know that he can be nuisance value.“I think his finishing can improve, but I like how he’s improving in a Celtic jersey. So if you’re asking me at this moment in time who is going to start up top, I think it will be Patryk Klimala.”"
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Klimala joined Celtic in January of this year for a fee reported to be around £3.5 million. And to be very honest, during his early appearances for the Hoops, he just did not seem ready for Scottish football.
Things have changed a lot since then though. The Polish striker has shown a fantastic attitude and seems hungry to succeed for the Hoops. Physically he appears much more stronger now and his desire to help the team shows every time he is on the pitch.
Although opportunities have not been many, Klimala has scored 3 goals in just 221 minutes of Premiership football this season. And more importantly, he has shown that he will run his socks off every time he is on the pitch. That’s really all you can ask from a player and it should not be surprising if the Pole does get the start tomorrow.