‘Very bad news’ – Brentford injury blow revealed by national team boss

James Holland 02 Nov 2021 2:50 PM

Norway manager Stale Solbakken has revealed that Brentford’s Kristoffer Ajer has picked up a serious injury.

The centre-back joined Brentford from Celtic for £13.5million on July 21. The transfer came after he publicly spoke about his desire to play in one of Europe’s top five leagues.

Ajer has since nailed down a starting spot under Thomas Frank. He has helped the Bees to keep clean sheets in victories over Arsenal and Wolves.

But the 23-year-old was left out of the squad for Brentford’s recent Premier League clash against Burnley. Frank’s men looked shaky in his absence and conceded three goals at Turf Moor.

Ajer was in line for another Norway call-up ahead of their World Cup qualifiers against Latvia and Holland later this month.

But Solbakken confirmed at a press conference that the player has suffered an injury.

“Ajer is out for a couple of months. He got a response to scans yesterday that gave very bad news. It’s the same injury as the last time.”

Reports in Norway claim that Ajer has suffered a muscle injury, although they do not provide any more detail than that.

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Brentford will have to rely on the likes of Pontus Jansson, Ethan Pinnock and Mathias Jorgensen while the star recovers.

Ajer recently spoke to The Independent about how his Brentford move came to fruition.

“They were very positive but also very keen to develop my weaknesses as well,” he said. “That was something I appreciated. I had some great conversations with the other clubs as well, but Brentford were telling me what I had to develop. That’s something I really like as a person, to know what I need to do to reach the level I have to reach – and Brentford were going to help me with that.

“They had scouted me for more than a hundred games. They told me all the reasons they were interested in me, but also what they could develop on the defensive side, all these things. From just talking about it, they really showed me how hard they work, with analysing and everything.”