Lennon impressed by Balde habit

Neil Lennon is confident that Amido Balde is about to hit the goal trail.

While most of his team-mates were away on international duty Balde has been working hard at Lennoxtown and scored in the 5-0 win for Celtic’s u-20 side at Motherwell.

Balde has yet to start a Champions League match but a scoring performance against Aberdeen could put him in line to face AC Milan on Tuesday.

“It’s a nice habit to have,” Lennon told Celtic TV referring to the strikers goal against Motherwell. “We gave him a run out just to keep him upto speed, he is young enough to recover, getting a goal and playing for an hour won’t have done him any harm at all.

Looking forward to eight crucial days in the season Lennon added: “It’s back to work for us now and a big week to look forward to against Aberdeen, Milan and Hearts- these games could define a couple of competitions in our season.

“Aberdeen have had a good start, they had a surprising result last time out (losing 3-1 at home to Hearts) but by all accounts they were in control until they went down to ten men.

“They won’t be intimidated facing us but I want us to go into the Milan game feeling good about ourselves. I’d like to improve our home form, particularly in the goals department and that’s something we are looking at.”

Aberdeen come to Celtic Park stronger than they have been for many years and as favourites to win the League Cup.

After Celtic the Dons suffered almost as much as anyone during the financial doping years of Rangers (In Liquidation) but are now beginning to look a force again with Scottish football starting to resemble a level playing field despite the hands-off approach of the games’ administrators.

Earlier this week Jamie Langfield, Jonny Hayes and Peter Pawlett all signed contract extensions to remain at Pittodrie indicating their confidence in the direction that the management team of Derek McInnes and Tony Docherty are taking the club.

Speaking about the new deals McInnes said: “I think it’s important to have that stability and all three boys have done well for me and I expect them to do well for us going forward.

“It’s great all three boys wanted to stay and have committed themselves. Once we spoke to them there wasn’t a lot of convincing required. Each and every one of them wanted to be here and be part of it.

“It was very quickly done. I think they feel they want to be part of something special here.”