LISBON LION Bobby Lennox scored TEN goals in two games within two weeks in 1968.
That’s one more strike than Albian Ajeti managed in TWO years at the Parkhead club.
The expensive Swiss misfit, reportedly on £25,000-per-week, eventually left the Hoops this week with the tag of being one of the worst purchases in the club’s history.
Ajeti netted six goals in Neil Lennon’s final season and a mere three in Ange Postecoglou’s first year in charge.
After a failed loan move to Austrian club Sturm Graz last term, he has now signed a one-year deal with Turkish team Gaziantep.
He may have had more success in Glasgow if he had studied some tapes of Lennox who amassed a total of 273 goals to make him Celtic’s second top scorer behind the legendary Jimmy McGrory on a remarkable 472.
GREEN FOR GO…the remarkable Bobby Lennox on the move.
Remarkably, 10 of that tally came in two back-to-back League Cup-ties against Partick Thistle and Hamilton Accies.
In the first at Firhill on August 31, Celtic won 6-1 in their final group fixture. Lennox opened the scoring in only FIFTEEN SECONDS when he latched onto a rebound from keeper Billy Ritchie to whip a shot into the exposed net.
George Cumming put through his own goal to make it 2-0 at the interval before the man known as Buzzbomb went into overdrive in the second period when he netted within a minute of the turnaround.
Lennox then thumped in three goals in a whirlwind eight-minute spell to knock the stuffing out of the Jags, whose consolation came from George O’Neill.
Only 11 days later, the prolific Celt staged an extraordinary replay when he thumped five past hapless Hamilton Accies keeper Billy Lamont as Jock Stein’s went on the rampage in a 10-0 win in the League Cup quarter-final at Parkhead.
Lennox had already claimed two with 10 minutes to go when he fired in a sizzling hat-trick to bring the curtain down on a striking masterclass.
Fellow-Lisbon Lion shared the goalscoring highlights with five on an evening the Hoops proved to be irresistible.
It’s an old adage that you only get what you pay for.
Ajeti cost £5million from West Ham in 2020. A more modest signing-on fee of £250 was Lennox’s windfall for stepping up from Ayrshire Junior outfit Ardeer Recreation in 1961.
As our friends across The Pond are fond of saying: Go figure.
