First the good news – Celtic went fifteen points clear last night and slightly made up for the weekend’s awful result with a 4-1 win over Kilmarnock. Joe Ledley scored a belter, Adam Matthews oddly enough scored twice and Tony Stokes got his first goal since coming back from injury. Â The win was tempered by injuries to Izaguirre – who should be okay for the weekend – and Samaras – who needs a scan on his hamstring.
Now the bad news – both before and after the game Neil Lennon was in a bad mood with the press, in particular with an article written in the Daily Record by former Celtic midfielder Murdo MacLeod in the aftermath of Sunday’s defeat. MacLeod – who I am no great fan of – claimed that the fans who attended Hampden on Sunday – of which I was one – had been short changed and that blowing two trebles in three seasons was ‘criminal’. Â For what it’s worth, I agree with MacLeod, Sunday was an awful performance. Â But Lennon was furious about the article, claiming that it had slighted both him and the players, and that MacLeod was trying to drive a ‘wedge between the players and the supporters’. Â Lennon continued to vent after last night’s game that ‘Celtic wouldn’t get any credit’ for last night’s win.
Now, I can understand Lennon fighting the corner for his team and in some ways I applaud him for that. Â But there was no need to get so angry about what MacLeod said, he is entitled to his opinion, and as I already said, in my opinion he was right. Â As far getting credit for last night’s win, what does Neil expect? It was a routine SPL win, and it doesn’t make up for Sunday’s awful performance.
I think it’s time for Neil to delegate press duties to Johan Mjallby for a while, until he has cooled down for a period, he doesn’t want the reputation for being a hot-head to get to him again, as he has shown on occasion to be an articulate individual. Â Another thing he should do – immediately – is give up twitter. I don’t know any other manager of a major club who spends time on a social media site either tweeting ‘hey’ to people or getting into petty disputes with their own supporters or supporters of other clubs – see Neil’s recent ‘spat’ with Norwich fans. I understand if he wants to communicate with fans but in the long run it will do him more harm than good.
The next month is huge for Celtic, with the Juventus game, a raft of league games and Raith in the cup, and we don’t need headlines generated by Lennon’s rants at all and sundry. Â He needs to just calm and concentrate on ironing out the problems that have affected our club – such as the inability to win at Hampden for one. Â Let’s begin to make that right at Raith on Sunday.
Neil is absolutely correct in his assessment of McLeod’s hypocrisy and in particular the fake sympathy for fans and their hard earned cash. McLeod is part of the Scottish MSM that is collectively ignoring the really important event that is taking place at Hampden this week. Will Murdo express the same sympathy for the fans of all the clubs in Scotland, especially Celtic fans, who were cheated for a decade by the now defunct Rangers?
To. Put things in context, Lenny in his first managerial position, and a relative rookie manager, has already provided silverware and titles, and was responsible for, not only a CL upset as 4th pot team,, but probably the most exceptional result at PH ever! He has achieved this, and the respect of his players and peers, including Sir Alex, The chosen one, and WGS. All on a very limited budget, and with many personal, off-field difficulties. Murdo writes pish for a chip wrapper!
What a load of garbage
i heard lennons interview and never heard him mention murdo mc leod. think he was aiming at kenny shiels and rightly so. i think we are so lucky to have lennon because i enjoy watching celtic now more than i have for a long time and just look at the quality of players he has given us. how did this article get on a celtic website. purw anti celtic bullshit.gbnl
Thank you Pipster.
I was begining to think I had dreamt the Sheils slating of all things Celtic.
For the first time in about 3 years, I agree with wee Murdo. I’ve been a big critic of him and his constant digs at Celtic but on Sunday he was right. Why can’t people see this Celtic team completely bottles it when it really matters? We’ve been excellent in Europe this season but thats because we’re underdogs, in Scotland when the pressure is really on Celtic have bottled it. The word criminal is OTT BUT the sentiment is correct. Neil Lennon will NEVER EVER have it easier to manage Celtic, and throwing away semi finals is not acceptable
Totally agree.
Humping sleekit sallys 15pt lead when he was playiing watties millionair side, Jevalic et al, before any talk of admin aside. Taking the notion that the season befores result was anything to do with ‘honest mistakes’ as complete nonsense.
Assembling the current team on a pitance and taking them to the last 16 with the best away results in decades against the likes of Spartak, Benfica and Barca a fluke.
Sitting 15pts clear at the top of the SPL and still the Scottish Cup to play for is totally unacceptable.
And since rangers are dead and the tribute act struggling to beat 11 men in the fourth tier you can only mean that Neils job is easier because for the first time in 125yrs we are finally getting something heading in the direction of a level playing field, then I couldn’t agree more.
People don’t appreciate the global importance of the league cup noodays!!!!!!!!!
Murdo can be a right pain in the arse on Sportsound, time and time again he gets on my nerves, I don’t read his paper so I cant say anything about what he normally writes. However, on Sportsound its as if he will deliberately criticise for the sake of it. He knows he’s the only ex-Celt on that programme so he must feel under pressure to try and not be partisan. But compare him to any other ex Rangers player in the media, do they try and not to be partisan? Hately, Johnstone, Dodds, Patterson, Dalziell etc do they hold back in their support of Rangers, not a bit, quite the opposite in fact. I’m not saying he cant criticise, far from it, by all means criticise but make it constructive and sensible. I’m sick fed up listening to ex-Celts with a grudge of some sort having a pop at the Club when it suits their needs, i.e. a newspaper column or on a TV Broadcast. Compare the above names to Burley, Walker, Nicholas, Provan and McLeod. The most annoying part of McLeods comments on Sportsound are when has the cheek to say on Sportsound he was upset and would have preferred if Neil could have contacted him privately. So he wants to use national newspaper to get his opinion over but Lenny is to contact him privately, aye right Murdo, take a hike.
With regards to Lennon, I don’t blame him for having a pop back, equally he has to do it with some restraint, he’s better than he showed on Wednesday. He should be in cruise mode at the moment and letting Murdo and others get to him and exposing his anger it is not good as it merely stokes up others to want to push him that bit further.
Both of them probably need to apologise to each other in private to bring it to an end.
Thank you Glen Gibbons for agreeing with me in The Scotsman today.