Neil Lennon has accused Spanish referee Alberto Mallenco of being pro-Juventus.
Articulating the feelings of thousands of Celtic supporters and television viewers the hoops boss hit out at Mallerco’s decision not to award Celtic a penalty at various corner kicks.
In the first minute Gary Hooper was bundled into the net with no let up throughout the 90 minutes as 10 corners were spoiled by the strong arm tactics of the Italians.
The only time Mallenco took any action was to ‘even things up’ by booking players from both teams with Hooper and Scott Brown mystified by their yellow cards.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the match
Lennon said: “I thought he was very pro-Juventus. I was disappointed with his performance to say the least. I thought he was poor.
“They were being fouled at every occasion.
The referee is looking at it. They were putting their arms around players, blocking their runs, trying to pull them down.
“The game must be different in Spain and in Italy from what it is in Britain because you cannot do that in the penalty box because it is a penalty.”
On the match itself Lennon said: ”We were excellent for 75-80 minutes. The second goal is a sucker-punch but the third goal was really poor from our point of view. Some of our football tonight was excellent and I didn’t think that there were three goals between the teams.”
It’s that ‘win at any cost’ culture that got Juventus relegated, once a cheat always a cheat. Not nearly in the same class as Barcelona, as players or as men.
As for Lennons tactics, shocking to be honest, the 6 or so people in my house gasped when we heard the team selection I.e Ambrose, Forrest, Mulgrew in midfield. For Neil to publicly lambast Efe is deplorable, regardless of Efe ‘not feeling fatigued’, Neil should have recognised his head would be all over the place, he had just played half a dozen games as at Right Back for a different team, with different tactics, in a different continent. He had absolutely no perpetration for the game.
He also asked for a couple of days off, which he was denied. As a very patriotic Nigerian this is very poor management. He was denied the right to enjoy the biggest moment of his life. Ok we pay his wages but we know the risks when signing African players.
Poor management, Mulgrew should have been in defence & Ledley should have been in midfield, perhaps Kayal in there as well for Forrest with Brown pushed out right. Certainly Mulgrew in defence.
Own up Neil, you got it wrong, can’t have it both ways by taking credit for getting us here then not the flak for poor team selection.
Anyway, we move on, hail hail!
Dick your talking pish!
Once again forrest is a passenger in the team, never once did he want the ball or make space for himsrlf, ledly and kayal would have did better but hay ho we are all great managers hail hail
Couldn’t believe Forrest and ambrose were playing either. Forrest was second to every ball (when he actually had the balls to go for it!) and ambrose looks like a mix of loovens and majstorovic!!!
Lennon has been magnificent for Celtic. He’s still learning his trade and last night was a curve to steep for him.
His decision to play Ambrose cost us the game.
How can he justify resting players for Inverness & playing Ambrose just back from Africa.
The referee was appalling & Platini’s assertion that Juventus were ‘already through’ looks even more crass now.
I’m disappointed though not surprised this us being played by Lennon & some Celtic supporters as the referees fault
If we continue to believe this we’ll never learn and have limited improvement.
I agree with Tezza and Richard. I think it often feels like we’ve only got ten players when we play Commons and Forrest together.
NL was right about the ref. He was weak and pathetic. Neil also had a lot of difficult selection decisions to make and he got some of them wrong- Forrest before Ledley?- which is fair enough.
However, his biggest thing he got wrong was to mention Efe Ambrose’s mistakes. The guy was obviously knackered and not up to playing another game. To play him anyway, then point out his mistakes, was shameful and unprofessional.
I don’t think any one individual is to blame for last night; we were beaten by a top italian side, who were at their cynical best. But it makes it very difficult to sypathise with NL’s selection mistakes when he keeps trying to blame the players for them. If I was Efe Ambrose, I’d be telling Neil this morning where he can stick his criticism.
totally
Hindsite is a wonderful thing but two of NL’s decisions certainly raised eyebrows-Ambrose and Forrest playing-I thought Rogne or Mulgrew at the back and Ledley in the midfield would have been in the team-it could have worked but it didn’t and NL knows that-it was his decision and he has to live with that.I thought Foster didn’t look good against St.Mirren and he again didn’t look good against Juve-maybe he is still injuried-we don’t know-and of course, not having Samaras certainly hurt us.
We have a had a good run-we have shown that we can play against anyone.The scoreline flattered Juve..the referee was weak…we made mistakes and at this level you get punished…we still have the away leg and I think we should very proud of our team and hope that we can come away with some type of result in Turin.
P.S. Sevco even moving their training time to accomodate Juve -was crass indeed-no class whatsoever I am afraid.
Lets just get a grip here eh? our goal was to get to knockout stages and we done it when everyone but us wrote us off, to lose the game the way we did was a disgace, the referee was the most baised cheat ive seen in a long time and thats a bold statement coming from the league we do, ambrose shouldnt have played, big lurch could have done better, the mistakes were school boy errors,and every shot on goal was straight at buffon.
But remember this is a team that has been and always will be at the top of the game, and we opened them up at will, there defensive horrible negative style, our mistakes and the disgrace of a ref cost us a win, we need to go to turin, hope we get a fair ref, and play our way and see what happens, the bottom line is, we made it through the group stages with pride, can you not see that everyone watching that game last night knows who should have one. same old juve always cheating!
Agreed
Juve wernt the team I thought they were gonna be. They struggled to put four passes together. Last night was a golden opportunity to take them.
Although juve taught us how to play the counter attack perfectly
Neil said after the game that playing Ambrose was a gamble that didn’t pay off. The point is, it was a gamble he didn’t have to take. Very poor decision indeed and like most contributors here, I could hardly believe it when the team was announced. Forrest will go on to make a name for himself but should have been hooked at half time last night, he wasn’t in the game.
I agree with Neils’ remarks about the referee – his tolerance of the Juventus tactics at corners was a disgrace and cost us dearly. The assistant behind the goal line was worse than useless.
Anyway, onwards and upwards. Remember the good games and learn from the bad.
Hail Hail
“Lets get a grip here eh?” As said by ‘sands1888’ – aye ok because you said so, nobody needs to ‘get a grip’, just people having a debate about their football team.
Fuck off, prick, hows that for a debate?
Exactly as I thought, your name says it all. Scum.
In what way is sands name scum Richard? Or do you prefer to be called dick? Watch your fuckin mouth..dick!
Entitled to have a chat about football without getting called a prick, thanks.
yh your right wank nobody should be calling you a dick when your clearly a wank. Say sorry sands and monti.
The next time you want to slowly read out comments on your side, get someone esle to type address in, then youll get video sevco or huns r us, whatever site you meant to be on, you waste of oxygen
Sands your right, dick fuck off and go follow your tribute act of a team ya fuckin zombie!!
Morning folks,on reflection of last nights game,the most disappointing aspect of the night for me was the team selection,even if Neil asked Efe how his condition was,Neil must/has to know Efe will be mentally/physically drained to an extent.Efe should have been a yard off Matri when the ball was played up to him,that would have allowed Efe to challenge Matri in the air,coming onto the ball,instead he got wrong side & a slight nudge from Matri allowed him a run through on goal. Second goal was just a quality goal( wasn’t saying that at the time), third goal Efe heavy footed & sluggish (as to be expected),Neil should never have played Efe,simple.I would ask anyone,why rest an entire first team v Inverness ( to save legs for Juve) only to play Ambrose who had no rest?? I don’t get that Neil sorry.For me Adam Matthews should start every game for Celtic,Ledley too,unless they are carrying an injury.he could/should have went with,Izaguirre & Matthews & full backs,Lustig & Wilson in the middle,Ledley,Brown,Wanyama & Mulgrew in midfield
Cont:..Comnons just in behind Hooper,That’s what I would have went with anyway. The Spanish referee was a complete joke, Celtic should have had at least 2 penalties,you can’t pull people in the box(unless your fkn Italian that is) a stronger referee will punish Juve for this. Overall I’ve got to say Neil got it wrong last night with the referee making things worse. On the plus side, we played well for long spells against a quality team & I thought Izzy was good.HH!
I don’t think any of us needed the benefit of hindsight to know that picking Ambrose was a mistake and Lennon has to learn from this. The experience and dig of Ledley was needed in the midfield with Forrest coming on later in the second half to open the game up if required.
We work very hard on our set-pieces but this was negated by the calamatous referee who allowed the appalling fouling by Juventus (the first corner resulted in Hooper being hauled 5 yards before being judo-thrown into the back of the net). How Hooper & Brown received cautions I will never know. Juve weren’t even being sly, or sneaky, or cynical. They were just re-interpretted the laws of the game which the incompetent officials decided to agree with (at least I hope that is the reason for their inability to officiate properly – don’t want to suggest that Juve would stoop so low as to resort to “other practices” again).
Also, I still can’t understand how Pirlo got off with only a wagging finger from the ref when he lashed out at Broonie for having the temerity to cleanly win the ball from him with the ref watching it all from only 5 yards away – if that had been the other way round a straight red would have been flourished with plenty grandeur.
A dissappointing result and a lot of lessons to be learnt. Hopefully this will be the platform to build on rather than the peak of this team’s achievements. It will take the same sort of efforts just to qualify for the group stages again next season so we can’t take anything for granted.
Hail hail.
I wonder if there is any CCTV footage of the referees room at parkhead? That ref was either just shite or corrupt,he certainly ignored the rules. CCTV will pick up any Brown envelopes being delivered to the refs room,he was a fucking disgrace.
I stated a couple of week ago that any suggestion of playing Ambrose was a mistake, a risk not worth taking so no surprise it turned out that way. What is even more annoying though was losing such a simple / stupid goal a 40-50 yard through ball over the top is pub league stuff !!
Again we shouldn’t be surprised though as we were ripped open 5,6,7 times v Helsingborg in the same manner. Lost similar goals v Moscow, Benfica in exactly the same manner. Surely someone at Celtic should be noticing this and making an effort on the training ground to guide players in regard to positioning – not ball watching.
Players being fouled at corners ? This has long been part of the game in Italy, so why did it take us by surprise. WHY did Hooper et al not make themselves harder to mark by making 2-3 yard runs, dragging defenders out of position instead of standing their ground and wrestling them ?
Why not put 4-5-6 players in a line on the 18 yard line impossible to mark then scatter into the area…show some invention.
We played well for a good part of the game, although not where it actually counted in & around the goal. Juventus were more than content to let us knock the ball around in the middle of the park.
Lennon got it baldy wrong again, now he says we need a miracle in Turin…we need a lot more than ONE miracle. Hope Juve leave out a lot of their top players but considering they were already without their best defender in Chielini last night doesn’t auger well.
Lessons to be learned aplenty…but how many will actually be heeded…going by our poxy defending,poor team selection I think none.
Unfortunately williebhoy, we have had problems against long ball merchants for years, the scum across the city (now deceased) were the worst,Less and less teams are playing football our way, the way it is meant to be played, the negative long ball counter attacking football is here to stay so we need to get a handle on it while still trying to entertain
He got it wrong that is all simpley AMBROSE was no the man or well ever be a good football player Hail HAIL
Bhoys a thought we played as well last night as we have in a long time but when you don’t take your chances at this level you pay a heavy price this juventus team are not as good as people might want you to beleive we should have beatin them at home big efe made a cunt of it at the 1st and 3rd goals and KC was right to have a go am fed up with this keep it in house shite if you fuck up some one should call you out on it but lenny should have took the choice away from him anyway. Am suprised super joe never started think he’s one of the better players in the squad but off to turin we go in hope once again, nobody said getting to wembly was going to easy. MON THE HOOPS HH
Oh ’67 in the heat of Lisbon,the fans came in their thousands,to see the bhoys become champions ’67..Win,lose or draw Celtic to the core!