Bitter Kris Boyd has hit back at Neil Lennon’s claim that there are great players in Scotland.
Last weekend as he watched Celtic hammer Ross County on a freezing cold day in Dingwall Boyd opted to slaughter the Scottish game that he picks up a living from by sharing his views with Sky Sports, The Sun, Radio Scotland and TalkSPORT.
Having managed at the sharp end for almost a decade Lennon knows the calibre of players in the Scottish game and picked out a few examples of great players who’ve emerged north of the border.
Eighteen months ago Lennon was negotiating the sale of John McGinn to Aston Villa, leading the way in the EPL is Liverpool with two of their top players- Virgil van Dijk and Andy Robertson- emerging from the SPL.
During the summer Arsenal valued Kieran Tierney at £25m with Ryan Christie, Callum McGregor and James Forrest in the same bracket.
No clubs are interested in anyone at Ibrox which probably colours Boyd’s judgement with the former Portland Timbers goal-ace taking Lennon to task in The Sun:
I CAN’T believe Celtic brought back Virgil van Dijk from Liverpool this week and I didn’t see the story. I also seemed to miss the breaking news that they’d lured Henrik Larsson out of retirement.
While I’m at it, have Rangers found a time machine from somewhere and got Brian Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne back to Ibrox? Because if all this hasn’t happened then I’m not sure what Neil Lennon was talking about with his reaction to my comments on the TV.
I said there are no truly great players in Scotland right now and, to be perfectly clear, I wasn’t talking about Van Dijk, Larsson or anyone else who USED to play in this country. But Lennon came out with the line that managers always use when he said he doesn’t pay attention to pundits! When quite clearly he does.
That’s even if he didn’t quite seem to get my point. And if he thinks Callum McGregor is good enough to play at the highest level for the likes of Barcelona or Manchester City then fair play to him.
In 29 appearances for Middlesbrough in The Championship Boyd scored six goals during the 2010/11 season.
Back at Ibrox in the 2014/15 season he notched three goals in 31 Championship appearances.
