Neil Lennon got a first hand impression of Elfsborg yesterday as he watched the Swedish champions draw 1-1 away to Atvidaberg four days before meeting at Celtic Park.
Unsurprisingly Mo Bangura captured most of the attention, missing a penalty and being substituted before telling a Swedish newspaper that he has no idea whether he’ll play on Wednesday night.
The Bangura situation seems to be dominating Elfsborg’s preparations for the Celtic match with coach Jörgen Lennartsson quickly dismissing the thought of Bangura being on penalty duty against his parent club- if selected.
Atvidaberg needed only five minutes to open the scoring yesterday through Nigerian striker John Owoeri but a goal by defender Johan Larsson earned the visitors a point.
The draw leaves Elfsborg six points behind league leaders Helsingborgs who have a game in hand with Lennartsson’s side far from impressive domestically.
With rumours circulating about just how competitive Elfsborg 11-1 aggregate win over Daugava Daugavpils was the chance to watch Wednesday’s opponents in competitive action was well worth missing Celtic’s friendly with Borusia Moenchengladbach for.
Speaking before flying to Sweden Lennon said: “I’m going to take the opportunity to go and watch Elfsborg and that will give me a better idea of how they play and how we’ll play against them.
“Listen, it’s no bed of roses because I’ve lost my main goalscorer. It was always at the back of my mind that that might be the scenario anyway, it was just a matter of when.
“So I’ve got plenty of attacking players at the minute, if we can add one or two to that, certainly try to add one before the game with Elfsborg on Wednesday.
“Elfsborg are very good at home. They have a lot of experience and they are a good counter-attacking team.
“I don’t know how easy or difficult it is to compare them to Helsingborgs last year.
“They gave us a really difficult time, especially in the first leg, and I’m expecting it to be no different against Elfsborg.
“When I see them it will give me a real good indication of where we are and where we can gauge them against us.”
Lennon knew that Hooper would be leaving in the summer. In fact i would have sold him in the January transfer window for the 7m offered by Norwich. Apart from the cup final, Hooper never kicked a ball from January onwards.
Lenny kept him to enhance our chances against Juve,it didn’t work but heh we still got decent cash for him. We should beat a team 4th in the Swedish League,I’m not being disrespectful but Swedish football is in decline.
Elfsborg are gash 3 nil home victory will surely be enough. NL managing expectations but this is not formidable.
I think we will struggle going by our pre season form.
Fair play to PL holding out for £5 an a bit mill for Hooper, his heart hasn’t been in it for the last 7-8 months so decent business by the board.
My gripe is knowing Hoops was leaving & with these qualifiers approaching we should have had all these players lined up ready to bring in, Lenny is saying in that interview he trying to bring a couple in atleast one before the game on Wednesday, well imo that not ideal, for such an important match risking throwing a player into action who not familiar with our style of play aswell as our players just ludicrous, the Ambrose/Juventus blunder should be a lesson, he was away from the team for a month and it showed in the game, No more gambles plz!!
HH