Neil Lennon wasn’t despondent after watching Celtic crash 4-0 to Ajax.
Saturday’s defeat made for painful viewing and set off some alarm bells amongst the support.
Similar alarm bells were heard last season, most noticeably in autumn culminating in the 0-3 half-time reverse at Kilmarnock.
Lennon refused to buckle or panic, retained his trust in the players to romp off with the title the next time they visited Ayrshire.
Now the timescale is much shorter.
Celtic have to be match-sharp next week to meet HJK Helsinki and take a lead to Finland capable of seeing them through into the final Champions League qualifier where the hard work really begins.
If they see off the Finns August will be dominated by headlines of £20m jackpots- the sort of money that will allow the club to breathe easily throughout the season and provide a meaningful challenge for players and supporters.
For at least 20 years Celtic have cast envious eyes at the ‘Ajax system’ with Tommy Burns spending time on the training ground of the Dutch masters trying to uncover the secret of developing footballers that look comfortable on the ball.
Lennon was part of a Celtic side that bulldozed Ajax out of the Champions League in 2001 and wants to see his Celtic side make a similar impact on the tournament.
“Where Ajax are, that’s the level we need to get to,” he explained after Saturday’s defeat. “They are a great team in Europe, and that’s where we want to be.
“It’s a learning curve for us, but we know we need to do better. We didn’t do ourselves justice. We were not competitive enough and they kept the ball really well and scored some good goals.
“We know we have got to do better and, hopefully, against Helsinki we can. We have got better as the pre-season has gone on. Obviously the Ajax result didn’t show that, but we have two more tough games which will help us go into the European game.
“We would definitely rather make the mistakes in these friendlies than against Helsinki.
The Ajax game was a marker for where we are and where we need to be to challenge for the Champions League.”
Lennon has got two matches against Norwich and Inter Milan to bring his side upto speed to meet the Finn’s with establishing the best defensive system the priority.
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I fear for us in Europe, we dont seem to learn from our mistakes ie Braga,Ultrecth,Sion etc. Most fans dont want to hear this but for us to progress in Europe we need an experienced coach. Neil lennon has done reasonably well, but i think we need somebody who can take us to the next level.
We had a manager(WGS) who took us to the last 16 of the CL, not once but twice and the majority of Celtic fans still wanted to see the back of him!!!
Lenny MUST sort out the formation and system that he wants us to play! De Boer said “Celtic played 3 different systems in the first half” That’s just a diplomatic way of saying “Celtic were all over the feckin place!!!
Obviously, match fitness will make a difference when the competitive games start. But I would say that there’s still a huge question mark over the ability of our CBs. All the match fitness in the world wont change that.(Don’t forget even PL knew we needed another CB, but unfortunately, he got injured and the deal was cancelled).
When you play attacking football like we do, good defenders, especially central defenders, aren’t a luxury; they’re a necessity: we wont win games against counterattacking European opposition without them- as we saw in the qualifying games for both the CL and EL last year.
Paranoidandroid says,
My friend i coudnt agree with you more,but i still feel we are not set up tactically for these games to get the best results.
The centre backs you mention are a neccesity, ours are Stoppers if you like with little composure and not much pace.
I have no fingernails left and there is over a week to go….. seriously concerned at lack of transfer activity, especially a CB! John Mensah has been mentioned but to be honest he will be another smoke screen like ciani… hope something sorted soon I need my fingers, they are just as important to me as the bhoys need for a CB! Sort it out P.L.
I would like to think that Neil Lennon will have his team picked for the Helsinki game already, he should start the 2 remaining friendlies with the starting 11 and the system we will use against Helsinki and get all players he expects to use in that game up to speed.there is plenty of time for the other players to get game time. Personally I would be happy for him to play it tight at Celtic park and hopefully take a 1 or 2 goal lead away with a clean sheet .
Quite agree! I just hope that Neil does’nt play people like Murphy, Bangura and Blackman against Norwich and Inter. Players like Matthews, Izzy, Kayal and Sammi need a couple of games under their belts before Helsinki. Also give some of the young ones like Watt and McGeouch some more game time. I’m sure that they would be more reliable than the first three I mentioned!
HH!!
I’m afraid it will be same old story again this year…we are far short of being competitive in every single dept…..i mean putting the financial issues aside…round about the same time the English Prem was being created Scotland and indeed Celtic had a chance to look at the game and seriously improve it….theres no doubt the more money you have to spend on players the better…but there are models out there of teams with no cash who have put models in place qand academies and have run them correctly….now i’m no marketing specialist but i’m sure the Eiredivise in Holland is no more acctractive than the SPL or at best slightly more so…television revenue for Ajax must be roughly the same as that for Celtic….so the question remains for all Celtic fans….who is letting our great club down?….why can Ajax be a top euro club on limited tv/merchandising and Celtic cannot?….have no doubt about this Celtic WILL NOT reach the group stages of the CL and probably won’t for a long time to come unless something fudemental is put in place now…..even for a friendly 4-0 gives me a lot to think about in terms of the gap in quality between Celtic, once the best team in europe, and other top euro clubs who in the past would have been lucky to lace the boots of our great club.