Neil Lennon went into some detail about the protocol issues that left Celtic without 13 players for the home matches against Hibs and Livingston.
On the park the Celtic boss has encountered plenty of problems with every aspect of his management coming in for criticism from fans who have watched a potentially historic season virtually collapse.
Celtic’s trip to Dubai has turned into a complete disaster, when the story of this season is written five days in a world class training facility will be at the centre.
What the exact protocols are has never been published but someone above Lennon’s level should have been involved to ensure that everything through the trip was compliant to the nth degree.
According to Lennon Celtic’s coach and plane travel was in accordance with the protocols that they have followed all season but once Chris Jullien tested positive 13 team-mates had to self-isolate while the club’s medical staff were able to continue to work as normal.
The situation is confusing with Glasgow Live covering the Celtic’s manager’s media conference from lunchtime.
Are you disputing that you should have been without that many players?
Yes. On the plane they were saying you had to isolate if you were two seats forward or two seats back, which wasn’t the case. We were told it was three metres.
Is it inaccurate?
I disagree with and I’m not convinced that was what we were led to believe. On the buses, the way we’ve been travelling and the way every team has been travelling up and down the country, now – the way the government has set out the protocols since we’ve come back, you can only have three on the bus out of a 52 seater.
We played Hibs and we had six players who couldn’t drive so we had to bus them. We couldn’t put all six on one bus. We had to get two busses to take six players. That would have meant in Dubai, we would needed 20 buses. If that’s the case, every team in the country is breaking protocols.
You feel as if the goalposts are moved?
100 percent.
Is there an issue with the guidelines?
We followed the protocols and it’s backfired on us, we’ve been punished for following the protocols so for me they’re a complete waste of time.
