WOLVES winger Zeli Ismail today signed for the Dons on a five-month loan deal.
The 20-year-old – who was once dubbed Britain’s first £100million wonderkid – put pen to paper with the Pittodrie club.
Wolves boss Kenny Jackett believes the Dons’ Europa League adventure was a key factor in his decision to send him north of the border.
He said: “Aberdeen have come in and they want to take him on loan until Christmas.
“They play next week and if they can get him registered today then he has a chance of being involved in the Europa League, where they play FC Groningen in the next round.
“I think it’s an exciting one – there’s something like 14,000 season ticket holders there and out of their last 10 games last season, seven of them were live on TV.
“They’re in the Europa League and they have the games against Celtic, for which they will be watched by fantastic attendances.
“So it’s a really good opportunity I think and it does seem like they’re very keen on him which is good from a player’s point of view.
“No disrespect to Scotland but there are different types of club even in that league, but I’d suggest Aberdeen with the attendances they can generate and the size of the games they have coming up it will be a very good experience for him.
“It’s very positive there – they finished third, they were very unlucky not to finish second when they got pipped on the last day.
“But they’re one of the strongest teams in Scotland."
Jackett says Aberdeen have tracking the former Burton Albion loanee for quite some time.
Talks reached an advanced stage last night after Ismail became aware of Aberdeen’s interest in him.
Dons boss Derek McInnes said he was looking to bring in one more player to bolster his squad.
Jackett said: “Kevin Thelwell (head of football development at Wolves) has been talking to Zeli about it and we’re open as a club to discussions and it sounds like an interesting proposition.
“They came in very strongly and very enthusiastically for Zeli.
“They’ve seen him play for our Under-21s and at Burton on loan.
“It was a guy called Russ Richardson (Aberdeen head of recruitment) is the particular scout who’s seen all the games he’s played and Derek McInnes is of course aware of him as well.”
Welcome aboard, very short deal though.