Neil Lennon admitted that the Celtic Board would have had to make one or two tough decisions regarding selling players IF his side failed to reach the Europa League group stages last night in Bosnia. The 1-0 win over FK Sarajevo means that Celtic are in line for at least a £10million windfall from UEFA – with more IF supporters are allowed back into Paradise for the big European nights that will now happen this winter.
After qualification was secured that awful prospect of selling our top stars has faded and the Celtic manager was upbeat as he predicted that he’d now keep all of his stars in this transfer window which closes on Monday 5 October. And by the way the vast majority of the Celtic support understands that no European football would have made sales probable and probably necessary so the significance of Odsonne Edoaurd’s winner cannot be under-estimated.
And the President of Albania was quick to show his appreciation for French Eddie…
Indescribable emotions!
The Hoops are through to the #UEL group stage!
THANK YOU FRENCH EDDY! 🍀🍋
Let’s celebrate this magical night!
Flaming hugs Celts!#CelticFC💚 #FKSCEL #UEL pic.twitter.com/YbTvSxak24— Ilir Meta (@ilirmetazyrtar) October 1, 2020
“I am very confident he’ll still be here after Monday night. In fact, I’m very confident they will all still be here,” Lenny said. “We’re very strong on it. We don’t want to sell any of our players and we don’t need to now.
“Maybe if we hadn’t qualified it would have been something the board would have looked at. But that’s not an issue now,” Lennon said.
“It was a very good, mature, professional performance. We were strong and we had to be. The game went how we expected it to on an horrendous pitch.
“We could have won by more, but they’re strong and well organised. We’ve been playing well in recent games. That’s three clean sheets and we’ve won the last seven games in all competitions.
“I’m absolutely thrilled to be in the group stages,” the Celtic manager admitted. “There was massive pressure on us, but that’s all from the Ferencvaros hangover. But we’ve won every game since then and the temperament of the players has been fantastic.
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“Now the season’s really opened up for us. I think this will spark our season. It was a very mature performance and I didn’t see any sign of nerves from the players.
“The goal was really well worked and Ryan Christie made the right decision to take the shot on because of the pitch. It’s bounced up in front of the goalkeeper, he couldn’t hold it and Odsonne’s showed great striker’s instinct to follow it in and score.
“It’s a huge goal from him and for the club. As a squad, I couldn’t be happier for them. They’ve been absolutely brilliant.”
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Here is Neil Lennon speaking to the Celtic View Editor Paul Cuddihy after the 1-0 win over FK Sarajevo…
And Jeremie Frimpong also spoke to Paul after the match…
