James Forrest has vowed to fight on for the SPL title and dismissed rumours that all isn’t well in the Celtic dressing room.
The 20-year-old was Celtic’s best player in the near disastrous 3-3 draw with Kilmarnock on Saturday and has emerged this season as the first choice wide player.
Forrest’s development was stepped up a gear or three by the incidents at Rugby Park with nothing in the Academy Handbook to prepare a player for the half time team talk when your under pressure manager finds his side three goals down at half time.
“I’ve heard the manager shouting more than he did at half-time because the players already knew being 3-0 down to anyone at half-time is unacceptable at a club like Celtic,” Forrest said.
“He said at half-time that we had to do it for the management staff and for ourselves.
“We were letting everyone down. We were letting the club down and we were letting the fans down.
“We were 3-0 down and they were still singing as if we were 3-0 up. The fans were tremendous and we really need to pay them back.
“It’s down to the players now and we know that, with that second-half performance we can hopefully kick on from here.
“I’ve known the gaffer from his time in charge of the reserves and he gave me my first-team chance.
“If you ask a lot of the players they’d say he is a good manager to work under but we have to try and kick on from this and show him what we can do.
“The manager told us we had to do it first and foremost for ourselves. In that first half we let the club down and hopefully we can kick on now.”
Forrest added: “No matter how many points Rangers get ahead there is still a long season to go.
“I’d say everyone needs to have a look at themselves. You can’t just pick on one or two. The whole team in that first-half performance wasn’t good enough.
“But the fightback in the second half was what playing for Celtic is all about.”
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We should learn WHY we were 3 down in the first place…Mistakes were made on & off the park. Biggest problem is that we don’t seem to learn from previous mistakes, so have little confidence we will from the latest.
No player will slag his manager, well not if they are getting game time. But it is blatantly obvious all is not well behind the scenes.
Lennon needs to show who is in charge, stop messing about with players / favourites and take the hard decisions to drop those who are not performing. Wake up time for EVERYONE at the club and we might salvage our title bid. But for me Lennon is NOT the guy for the job…never was and don’t see it changing in the months ahead.
Midfield is not right ki and Kayal are a shadow of themselves, ledley has to play central midfield when fit.