HATEM HAS THE FULL PACKAGE

Elhamed settled at Celtic and looks a bargain buy after some eye-catching performances in Europe

TIME and again, Neil Lennon and his backroom team pored over the scouting footage of Hatem Abd Elhamed. Pace? Check. Technique? Tick. Awareness? Affirmative. ‘We looked and looked, trying to find out what was wrong with him,’ admits the Celtic manager. ‘Was there a flaw?

‘We’d look at other players but kept going back to him and thought we’ve got to trust our eyes here, trust our instincts.’

Three months on, the Celtic manager is still trying to work out the catch in a deal that cost his club just £1.8million.

The acquisition of a right-back to replace Mikael Lustig, a vastly experienced international who had been a pillar of the club’s eight successive titles, promised to be one of the toughest aspects of an extensive summer of recruitment.

Served up a recommendation by Dudu Dahan, the Israeli-based agent behind deals to bring the likes of

Beram Kayal, Nir Bitton and Efe Ambrose to Glasgow, Lennon immediately liked what he saw.

Yet even the most-trusted associate can deliver bad apples, as anyone who remembers Rami Gershon’s short spell in Glasgow would attest. Quite naturally, Lennon had questions over whether a nomadic 28-year-old with just a handful of international caps represented the answer to a searching question.

‘I’ve a good relationship with the agent and he was waxing lyrical about him, as agents do,’ continues Lennon. ‘But he’s been true to his word so far.

‘Hatem has been excellent. I think he’s a hungry boy, he’s waited a long time for an opportunity like this.’

Elhamed started his career at Maccabi Tel-Aviv but, prior to his move to Scotland, spent his career bouncing around an odd triangle of club football in Israel, Belgium and Romania.

The failure to settle anywhere for a sustained period is hardly suggestive of an even temperament, yet Elhamed oozes calm from every pore and has taken seamlessly to life at a club that is bigger and more demanding than the likes of Charleroi, Dinamo Bucharest or Hapoel Be’er Sheva.

‘He’s done the rounds — if you want to call it that — in Europe and Israel,’ adds Lennon. ‘There’s a real hunger about him and I like that. But there’s no shortage of quality and ability. He is proving to be value for money.’

Elhamed debuted for Celtic in the club’s opening Premiership fixture of the season against St Johnstone and later delivered a starring role against Rangers at Ibrox.

By and large, though, he has been kept in reserve for big European nights. A starter in each of the three Europa League matches that have seen Celtic go top at the halfway point in the group stage, he produced arguably his best performance yet against Lazio on Thursday.

Placed in danger by a formation designed to let the Italians’ wing-backs cause havoc on the flanks, Elhamed restricted his direct opponent Jony to a fraction of the joy experienced by goalscorer Manuel Lazzari on the other side of the pitch.

Most commonly deployed as a centre-back throughout his career, Elhamed looks entirely at home playing as a No2 for Celtic, to the point where Stoke City loanee Moritz Bauer already looks like a domestic understudy.

‘I think the manager trusts me, especially in the big games,’ says the defender. ‘He wanted to give me some rest in the league last weekend because I’d just played two games for the national team.

‘That is okay for me but every player wants to go again.’

Elhamed was substituted late on against Lazio after suffering some cramp, so it may be that Bauer is selected to start against Aberdeen at Pittodrie today.

Elhamed, though, is likely to get the nod when Celtic visit Rome for their next European assignment a week on Thursday.

If there will be fewer opportunities to showcase the fancy footwork that saw him pull out a couple of stepovers and one arresting backheel the other night, Lennon knows he has recruited a player who has more than one string to his bow.

‘I think Hatem’s a centre-half, but he can play both positions very well,’ he said. ‘When he slotted in at centre-half at Ibrox, he was fantastic. The pair we’ve got (Christopher Jullien and Kristoffer Ajer) is working out pretty well so far but if we go to a back three, Hatem can slot in there.

‘I don’t know whether he played further up the pitch when he was younger but you can see he’s comfortable on the ball.

‘The defensive side of his game was strong on Thursday night, particularly in the first half, and his quality on the ball was very good. He has good pace about him as well. ‘He’s very proficient in the tactical side of the game. I was delighted with his performance — he has a good temperament and he played very strongly. He’s a good type but we’re still really getting to know him as a personality.

‘He’s very quiet away from the training ground but I’m delighted the way he’s slotting in, so far.’

Although there were some striking individual performances from Celtic against the Romans

— Fraser Forster’s goalkeeping and Ryan Christie’s relentless foraging being the obvious highlights — this was not one of Celtic’s most complete European performances.

For Elhamed, that scarcely mattered. If it was inexplicable that Lazio should gift both Christie and Jullien the space to score their second-half goals, Celtic’s belief that they could exploit such failings after falling behind was the mark of something substantial for a team that remains a work in progress.

‘Before coming here, I knew Celtic was a very big club, well known in Europe, and on Thursday I could feel it so much,’ reflects Elhamed.

‘To play in front of this crowd in a big European game against a very good team from Italy made me very happy.

‘I think we had some really good moments in the game and some not so good moments but at this level this is what happens.

‘Lazio are a very good team but we spoke together before the game and at half-time and said we can win this game. We went for the victory and I think you could see that in the second half.

‘When you play together a lot, you get a better connection with each other, you speak a lot during the game and the communication becomes stronger each time.

‘For me confidence is important. When I have it I think I am a good player. I am very calm with the ball, I have very good technique and my physical level is high.

‘The comeback should give us all confidence to believe in ourselves.’

A look at the Group E standings will only nourish the players’ sense of worth. After three fixtures, Lennon’s team sit top on seven points, seemingly with one foot already in the knockout stages. One more win would see the team get to the 10-point mark that normally guarantees qualification.

Celtic could lose in Rome yet still achieve something special if they find a way to win at least one of the remaining games against Rennes (home) and Cluj (away).

But Elhamed aspires to win the group. He adds: ‘We’ve beat Lazio and Cluj and we drew away against Rennes, so I think we’ve shown that we are a very good team. So why not? We are Celtic.’

I think that the manager is trusting me, especially in the big games