Pots and kettles- Neil Lennon slams abysmal, pathetic performance

Neil Lennon has described Northern Ireland’s performance in the 2-1 defeat from Bulgaria as abysmal.

Ian Baraclough’s side went into the half-time breaking leading 1-0 but turned that round after the break to lose 2-1.

It was the second successive defeat for the side with their World Cup play-off hopes ending on Saturday when they lost in Switzerland.

A year ago Celtic’s season was on the brink of imploding with four successive home defeats within a disastrous Europa League campaign.

Celtic scored first in each of their three away matches- going 2-0 up at Lille and AC Milan- but only took one point from nine on the road as they lost a disastrous 19 goals to finish bottom of their group.

Lennon didn’t take kindly to media criticism of those performances but listening in to his appearance as a pundit on Sky Sports for the defeat from Bulgaria, the Daily Record reports Lennon saying:

My emotions are ones of anger… that was abysmal in that second half, absolutely abysmal.

First half, Bulgaria looked like the worst team in the group by far. Northern Ireland had three great chances, and then they scored.

They could have been two or three up at half-time, they came out for the second half, no urgency, and were totally passive. They sat off Bulgaria and invited them onto us, our game management in the second half was pathetic.

With 15 minutes to go, we were 2-1 down and had not really been in their half. We got a corner, we take a short one and lose it, the ball is 50 yards back up the pitch to kill any momentum.

It seems to me they lost their way completely, no leadership, the gaps between the back three, the midfield and front two was all over the place in the second half. We deserved to lose.

Lennon has been concentrating on his media career since resigning as Celtic manager in February.