Celtic needs Neil Lennon.

There are some names in Celtic’s history that make me smile before I have even finished saying them. Neil Lennon is one of those names.

Not because I want him back on the touchline — dear God, Celtic, please spare us that particular nightmare again — but because when I think about what Martin O’Neill’s Celtic needed, what made that team tick and what our midfield is missing right now, I keep coming back to the same conclusion.

Celtic need Neil Lennon.

Not the man himself, obviously. I am talking about the player. The midfielder who could stand in the middle of the park, put his foot on the ball, read the danger, win the battle and make the rest of the team feel that everything was going to be all right.

As I look at Celtic now, I see a team that can attack, a team that can score goals, a team with fresh blood and exciting possibilities. But I also see a midfield that can become disjointed, exposed and strangely vulnerable when the opposition decides to make life difficult.

When Martin O’Neill arrived at Celtic, he did not simply collect talented footballers and hope that something beautiful would happen. He built a team with character, aggression, balance and a very clear understanding of what it meant to play for Celtic. And Neil Lennon was one of his most important signings.

I don’t remember that Celtic side; I never saw them. But I know of it. Of course I do. There was power in it. There was personality. There were players who could play football, certainly, but there were also players who understood that football is not always about the prettiest pass or the most spectacular goal.

Sometimes it is about standing in front of the defence and saying, “No. Not today.” Sometimes it is about winning the second ball or stopping an opposition attack before it becomes a problem. Sometimes it is about giving your more creative teammates the freedom to do what they do best because they know you are behind them.

And sometimes it is about making the opposition absolutely sick of trying to get through you. That was Lennon. He was not there to decorate the midfield. He was there to control it.

Now, I am not going to sit here and pretend that Celtic have no midfielders. Of course we do. We have Callum McGregor, who has given this club more than most players could ever dream of giving it. We have Mika Baur, who has already shown that he can contribute, and Benjamin Nygren, who brings quality and attacking intent. We have players who can carry the ball, pass it, move it and create.

But I keep asking myself whether we have the right balance.

When McGregor is asked to do everything, when the midfield becomes stretched, I start to wonder whether Celtic are missing that one player who can simply take responsibility for the middle of the park. The player who makes the game ugly when it needs to be ugly and understands that sometimes the most important pass is the one that takes the pressure off.

And I am sorry, but that is not an old-fashioned requirement.

In fact, I would argue that it is even more important now, because modern football is so fast, so transitional, so brutally demanding. If you lose the ball in the wrong area, you can be punished in seconds. If your midfield is not compact, not disciplined, not intelligent, then suddenly your defenders are running backwards and your attackers are chasing shadows.

And Celtic cannot afford to keep doing that.

Look at what happened against LASK. Celtic could score three goals at home. We could create, we could attack, we could make Paradise roar. But then came the away leg, and suddenly the game looked very different.

I am not saying one midfielder would have magically solved everything. Football does not work like that. But when you are playing European football, when the opposition is clever and knows how to exploit space, you need a midfield that can manage the game.

You need someone who can recognise when to slow things down, win a foul and make the right decision under pressure. Someone who can protect the defence when the full-backs are high and give the team a little bit of calm when the opposition is throwing everything at you. That is what I mean when I say Celtic need another Neil Lennon.

I do not mean someone who looks like him, talks like him or plays exactly like him. I mean someone who gives us what he gave us.

So why, after another major rebuild, after another summer of signings, did we not make finding that type of midfielder a priority? Why did we not identify the player who could take some of the weight off McGregor’s shoulders?

Because I look at Callum, and I think: you have carried enough. You have given Celtic your youth, your prime, your leadership, your loyalty. You have been the heartbeat of this club for years. And now, as much as I admire him, I do not want to see him having to do absolutely everything.

I want him to have a midfield partner who can share the burden. Someone who can win the ball and give it to him, cover him and say, “Callum, you do your thing. I will take care of this bit.” That is what a great midfield partnership is supposed to do.

And before anyone says, “Oh, here we go, another Celtic fan romanticising the past” — no. This is about understanding what made a successful Celtic team successful, looking at the present and asking what is missing.

Football is not just about collecting attacking talent and hoping the goals will come. It is about having players who complement one another.

When I was marking the transfer window, I thought: “Excellent attacking vocabulary. Some promising new sentence structures. But the midfield paragraph is still missing its strongest verb.” What I can’t understand is why a fault line that was so clear to the rest of us was not fixed by the club, or the management team.

We have players who can excite us. But I want to see a player who can impose himself, take control without needing to score a goal or provide an assist, and make Celtic more difficult to beat. I do not think that is asking for too much.

I love watching Celtic attack. I love seeing the Bhoys in green and white move forward, the crowd rising, the ball flying into the box, the possibility of another goal hanging in the air. But I also want us to be able to go away from home and say: “We are Celtic. We are the champions. We are not going to be bullied here.”

I want us to have the mentality to win the ugly games. The games where the opposition is physical, the referee is making strange decisions, the pitch is poor, the atmosphere is hostile and everything seems to be against us. I want that player who can stand in the middle of it all and say, “Right. Enough. We are taking control now.”

That is the extra layer of steel Lennon gave O’Neill’s Celtic and now we need that kind of authority. We need that sort of balance.

We need character. And, in my humble but very determined opinion, we need another Neil Lennon in the middle of the park.

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