Neil Lennon has saluted Scott Brown’s incredible display against Benfica.
The hoops captain has had to follow his own training plan and has been used sparingly due to a hip injury.
Despite a shortage of game time Broony put in an outstanding shift alongside Victor Wanyama to ensure a point against the Portuguese side.
Asked about his skipper Lennnon said: “He gives the team real drive. There were moments in the second half when he saw the danger and covered the ground and made tremendous tackles and nipped counter-attacks in the bud very quickly and he is improving all the time.
“He has matured a lot and has blossomed into the captain that he is. He has played at this level before, there were 10 who haven’t, and he sets an example.
“He recovered very well from the game at the weekend and finished the game tremendously strong which was surprising and we will see how he is over the next couple of days.”
Looking at the match overall the Celtic boss added: “We didn’t work their keeper as much as we would have liked but saying that I was very pleased with the team performance tonight.
“It was a very good tempo, a good shape to us, we were committed and played with real zest and no fear against a class side.
“It was a decent start for us, it could have been better it could have been worse.
“I think they will probably be the happier going away, I don’t think there was anything really between the teams.
“There were 10 guys out there making their Champions League debut against a very experienced Champions League side so I am very proud of them.”
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While both Brown & Wanyama put in a tremendous amount of work we failed to create any decent chances at all. With Forrest inneffective out on the right I’d have switched Brown out wide to try and get at their full back.
Plenty of effort but lacking in any guile, a little disappointed as they were there for the taking. I appreciate we were short handed due to injury but feel we could have done more and will regret dropping these 2 points. Miku is clearly short of match sharpness, while Hooper was struggling with injury so why not turn to the young guns – nothing would faze them and they haven’t let us down yet.
We’re playing in the Champions League. We’ve been playing pish lately in our domestic league. Our team is full of inexperienced players at this level. We were without several key members of the team and some of our better players (Forrest, Izzy) are off form. I thought we showed poise and control last night and it was a good result all things considered.
With stokes, sammi, kayal & Ledley missing last night, it was a decent shift last night, just lacked a cutting edge!!
I don’t know about nothing fazing the young guns. You only have to look at Forrest last night. Nerves clearly got the better of him. People need to gie the team a break. 10 new bhoys to Champion’s League football meant it was always going to be nervy. Not only are they new to it but they’re pretty young. They’ll come into their own soon once the awe wears off. Although, that won’t apply when they play Barca. Get the feeling they’ll be a little starstruck, which you couldn’t blame them for really. We did alright all things considered and we didn’t shame ourselves.
In Lenny We Trust.
Aye i reckon they’ll come into their own but we shouldn’t get starstruck even v barca…..Lenny himself wasn’t starstruck ever playing against davids etc….we should get stuck right in just like spartak did
That’s my point we show teams far too much respect.Sure we were without a few players, but then so were Benfica, in particular in defence yet they got a very easy 90 mins.
I’m not saying go out all guns blazing, gung-ho and throw players forward but we should definitely have pressed them further up the park. They were making basic errors in the early part of the game and we let them settle to a comfortable draw.
Forrest was quiet, but then the service he got was poor. We were screaming out for pace or someone to run at their defenders. I don’t buy into this fear factor, young team stuff the players live for the big games…the bigger the better they should be bursting with energy and desperate to get at any oppositon. Playing at a high tempo and keeping them under pressure.
If we settle for less, then we will always get less. This isn’t knock-out football, away goals don’t matter, we should be looking to take the game to our opponents from the start. Our build-up play was too slow / deliberate making it easy to defend.
If that was in Lisbon, I’d be happy but at home we could have done more which for me is a disappointment. Brown led the way in effort, energy we could have done with a few more matching him and really been celebrating.