Lustig’s 16 honours at Celtic versus none at West Ham or Fulham

Lustig arrived at Celtic in January 2012 signing rom Norwegian side Rosenborg and he has now revealed the reason he opted for Celtic rather than the other offers he had on the table from English sides West Ham and Fulham.

Speaking to Swedish podcast Lundh, he said: “I had the chance to go to West Ham and Fulham when I was at Rosenborg. But they were two teams that were in the Championship one year, then the Premier League one year and fought at the bottom.

“At that time I really couldn’t defend. I couldn’t go there and just defend; then I would be completely depressed. When I chose, it was really that I needed to go to a team that fought at the top and won a lot of games, because that was the offensive game I had,” the Swede said.

Lustig initially, found the transition from Rosenborg to Celtic challenging: Celtic’s higher tempo, physicality and expectations meant the Swedish right-back had a rough first few months, and he even considered leaving. Thankfully he gradually found his feet in Scottish football and became a fixture in the team for the next seven seasons.

Lustig made around 276 appearances for Celtic in all competitions, scoring some key goals, including a dramatic diving header against Aberdeen in May 2019 which helped seal the club’s 8th successive Scottish Premiership title.

He also admitted that he didn’t realise just how big a club Celtic was until he started to realise the extent and the range of the huge Celtic support around the world.

“It’s such an incredibly big club. When you’re there and especially when you go abroad, it doesn’t matter if it’s in the USA or Spain, there are always Irish pubs where you see people in Celtic shirts.

“Then you realise that it’s not just in Glasgow that people talk about Celtic. The club is very big.”

Lustig’s trophy haul at Celtic is considerable: he won 16 major honours, including eight consecutive league titles (2012-19), four Scottish Cups, and four Scottish League Cups. A highlight was the 2016-17 season under Brendan Rodgers, when the team went undefeated domestically, often referred to as an “invincible” campaign.

At West Ham or Fulham he’d have won nothing at all so not a bad decision opting to sign for Celtic, regardless of the reason.

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