Former Celtic striker Scott McDonald called into The Celtic Huddle podcast from Australia to give his thoughts on what’s happening at his old club. Hosted by Mark Wilson, with both Frank McAvennie and Simon Donnelly yesterday put out a live podcast where the former Celts picked over the bones of Celtic’s defeat to Ross County in the League Cup on Sunday and discussed the reasons why they believe that Celtic are on such a dreadful run of just two wins in ten games.
“I think there’s a problem with the players and the manager,” McAvennie said, pointing to both Ryan Christie and Odsonne Edouard wanting moves, while Mark Wilson reckons that he’s only seeing the necessary desire from Scott Brown.
McDonald reckons that the current problem stem back to the manager’s comments after the Champions League defeat to Ferencvaros. “If they are making waves to leave the club they are obviously not committed. We want players committed to the club. I’m not going to go into it but I’m putting it out there because it has been bugging me for a long, long time,” Neil Lennon said at the time and this, McDonald reckons, is the cause of the current situation.
“It’s been pretty much a car crash ever since they didn’t qualify for the Champions League. I will go back to that and pinpoint that as a serious turning point in terms of what Neil said in his press conference after the game.
“I felt it was alarm bells right there and then when he said half the players don’t want to be here. If that is the case, all fine and well but as we all know there is eyes and ears everywhere and you have to keep those things in-house.
“All of a sudden there is crisis and the press love it, they are going to get all over it.
“If there is any cracks at Celtic Park because they have had so much success they are going to go with it and Neil gave them the opportunity.
“He was more or less calling the players out and I don’t think a lot of those players were ready for that, or appreciated it or accepted it and I feel from that day on, he lost quite a lot of them in that changing room.”
“I don’t want Neil to lose his job,” McDonald stated but pointed out that it’s been 60 years since Celtic last lost four games on the bounce at Celtic Park. He goes on to describe John Kennedy as ‘part of the furniture at Celtic” and believes that the club believes in him, with Wilson adding that Kennedy has been groomed to be the Next Celtic manager. McAvennie reckons that Celtic can’t be his first job as manager and should have gone to Hibs when he was linked with that job.
Simon Donnelly focused on Odsonne Edouard’s lack of form this season and wonders if his head has been turned by the transfer speculation. McAvennie noted the strange look on Ryan Christie’s face when Edouard opened the scoring in Prague last week saying “something’s not right there”.
Once again this is a very decent podcast, and well worth a listen.
Update – the sharing option seems to have been switched off after we posted this embedded link this morning, but you can click on the You Tube link showing instead to listen to the podcast. We have also embedded their tweet advertising the podcast below. Strange really…
Catch up with the latest from the Celtic Huddle Podcast NOW! ⚽️@markwilson_12 is joined by @SimonDonnelly13, @MaccaFrank and @ScottyMcD83 talking about another tough week for @CelticFC…
Available NOW on Apple Podcasts, Podbean and YouTube, just search 'Celtic Huddle' 🎧 pic.twitter.com/cm4dC4OfX3
— The Celtic Huddle (@HuddleCeltic) December 2, 2020
