Neil Lennon has banned all talk of the Champions League before Celtic’s SPL matches.
Scott Brown and Lassad Nouioui both discussed Barcelona in midweek with the hoops boss believing that his players must give their full attention to SPL matches.
Celtic have won four out of four matches in Europe this season but have recorded just two wins out of five in domestic matches.
Lennon must lift his players for Wednesday’s Champions League clash with Benfica on the back of losing to St Johnstone.
“I’m not going to answer any more questions on Champions League games before SPL games,” the hoops boss stated. “I just think it’s festering into the players and they look like they took their eye off the ball.
“We got off to a great start and never capitalised on it. We probably thought after we scored that it was going to be easy and games are never easy.
“We looked like strangers at time and some of my main, consistent performers were very, very poor.
“That’s one point out of six in the last two league games. It’s not acceptable and that performance wasn’t acceptable.
“We need to get back on the horse very quickly. There’ll be a full house and I’m expecting a big performance from them.
“Today’s performances was needless and unacceptable and I’m very, very disappointed with them for the first time in a long time.”
Benfica aren’t in action this weekend with the Portuguese Cup getting underway without the clubs that are playing in European competition.
It’s all very well Neil having a go at the players, but today’s loss was down to his tactics. Or to be more exact this ridiculous obssession he has with trying to play with four forwards.
He’s done it many times over the last four years, and we’ve dropped many points to teams we should have beaten because of it. The same thing happens every time he tries it: He puts out a team with a severely weakened mid-field, we drop points and then he rants and raves at the players.
Three years ago we threw away the league at ITC because, out of nowhere, after a good run of victories, Neil decided he was going to play with four forwards, again.
It’s not difficult. Two midfield players can not compete against four or five for a whole 90 minutes. He’s proven that over and over again, so now its well over due for him to learn from his mistake. He’s done a lot of good things at the club, but he must get over this four forward obssession.
He’s had 2 full seasons so Fuck knows were the 4 came from the players are at fault today they think there better than they are brown and commons were just about ok the rest where a total joke mulgrew and forrest were the worst. The only thing lenny got wrong was keeping hooper on after he got injured apart from that what else could he do the players are to blame not the manager
Why play four forwards away from home? It makes it mucxh easier for the other team. He did that against ICT three years ago, when we lost the game and the league, and he’s still doing it now. He knows it’s weak because he never does it in Europe. So why do it at all?
Oh, yeah, cracking up. Was ICT just two seasons ago? My bad. But I still dont get the repeated use of four forwars when we drop points everytime.
Games are won & lost in the dressing room, preparation, tactics, ensuring the attitude is right….today AGAIN we were miles off the pace.
Throwing in players well short of match fitness is asking for trouble, playing several at the same time is madness.
Lennon must take full responsibility as he picks the team / tactics. If things aren’t right on the park he has the power to change them. Too often he is having to change his own mistakes. Sure the players must learn but also the management. I’ve said many times the view from the dugouts is among the poorest in any stadium so why do persist in putting all 3 backroom staff in the same poor viewing area. Lennon himself admitted he gained a better outlook on games when he was banned to the stand so why change back.
Benfica is a massive game for us and we have to get it right ON & OFF the park to give us any sort of a chance.
F**k here we go again the “sack lennon brigade ” are out in force AGAIN and we play 2 upfront forrest and commons are wide MIDFIELDERS it was a bad day with to many off form nothing to do with lenny
Nobody wants to sack Lennon. I’m only asking that he learns form a repeated mistake.
You can’t seriously tell me that Commons and Forrest, good attacking players that they are, can defend. A lot of the time they don’t even try to.
Calling somebody a midfielder doesn’t make him one. The time for four forwards is when we’re a couple of goals up- and preferably at Parkhead.
Bang on Mark, Miku new lad looked average today Forrest was poor today but he’s only learning still, Celtic at their best when Matthews plays he’s top drawer, How is Lustig an international! IsaguIrre not great since his injury we’re better with Mulgrew out on the left, Wilson looking more confident hopefully Ambrose is makes a big difference for us when he comes in, and Kayal is also missed Patience Hail Hail
Any team we put on against teams like st johnstone should be good enough were better a lot better so al put it down as a bad day at the office and move on but I agree our league form is shocking and must improve. Hail hail
Drama queens. People picking holes in Lennys selection by going back to a result 2 YEARS ago to try and prove a point. Ridiculous. We lost today due to the application of the players. St J forced us into mistakes by pressing us non stop. Cant recall us doing that to them. Said before that there was far too much talk about CL. Would rather we concentrated on the bread and butter first
Not good enough today. Everyone was poor, including the likes of Mulgrew and Wanyama who are so consistent.
We looked so sloppy and couldn’t really get a grip on the game. St Johnston kept a high tempo throughout the game and played some good football.
There is no crisis and team selection wasn’t the problem, just a poor performance, we are more than capable of playing so much better than that.
when will the players stop reading papers celtic will win the leaguebefore christmas 2 wins from 5 league games 5th in table league tables dont lie please stop cheating the fans and pull your fingers out
I can’t agree that the tactics, formation, and team selection weren’t a problem yesterday. It couldn’t be more obvious: We drop points every time we try to play that way.
Is it a coincidence that the players always have a shocker when we play with four forwards? Or is it that the players struggle if the manager doesn’t set them out properly?
I always think that we dont close players down enough and give them plenty of space to pass to each other. We need to mark more tightly in my opinion.
No one is beyond criticism, no manager doesn’t make mistakes…but good ones learn from them and try to ensure they are not repeated.
Lennon has made the same mistakes several times, utter stupidity cost us the points.
Hopefully they get to work on Izzy and try to get him back to 100% fitness / sharpness as we have no cover at all at left back. Mulgrew is far too slow, Ledley is a fish out of water and switching Matthews reduces his effectiveness.
International weeks are garbage, we should strongly think about withdrawing players for future friendlies…we have far more important things to consider.