It took Celtic a long time to sign a right-back in the summer transfer window. They ended up signing two, Moritz Bauer and Hatem Abd Elhamed.
Bauer has only made one appearance for the Hoops so far. But Elhamed has featured fairly regularly since joining the club from Hapoel Be’er Sheva for £1.6 million.
Since making his debut, he has yet to put a foot wrong for the Hoops. His debut was impressive, in the 7-0 win over St Johnstone.
He also played well in the 1-1 draw against Cluj. Perhaps his only blemish was in the 4-3 second leg defeat to Cluj, but no Celtic player did well that night. However, he was one of the Hoops’ better players that night.
Very impressive performance against rivals
Most impressive though, was Elhamed’s performance against Rangers in the recent 2-0 win at Ibrox. It was his first performance for a few weeks after being out injured.
He stood up well to every Rangers attack at right-back, then when he had to move into central defence after Nir Bitton’s injury, he didn’t put a foot wrong and was solid in defence.
What will be of most interest to Neil Lennon and the Celtic support will be how accomplished Elhamed looked at centre-back.
He was bought to play at right-back for the Hoops, but he has spent a lot of his career playing in the heart of the defence.
Manager has a dilemma that he will be happy about
That will give the Hoops manager a dilemma that no doubt many managers would love to have. Elhamed looks like he could play at both centre-back and right-back with confidence for Celtic this season.
He could also improve as the season goes on as he gets to know his team-mates more. Given his performance against Rangers, Lennon will have no concerns about playing Elhamed at centre-back in Celtic’s next league game against Hamilton.
It would be no surprise to see the Hoops player similarly strolled through that 90 minutes. He certainly looks the part early in his Hoops career, and long may it continue.
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
