There are times in life when you have to hold your hands up and admit that you were wrong. If Tom Rogic was sold in the summer, I would have said fair enough as I believed that we had seen the best of a great servant to the club. I was also part of the “Get Rid of Neil Lennon” campaign especially after the Glasgow Derby defeat. I am so glad to say today, that I was so wrong on both counts.
Tom Rogic is still such a huge player for us and his class, intelligence and quality still remains unquestionable.
As for Lenny his response since theRangers match has been that of a true Celt, when the chips are down we will come out fighting.
Yet I did believe he couldn’t get the best out of these players, wrong again. What we saw at Hampden yesterday in the first half today and also against Lille is what we have become so used to from a Celtic team, good football with brilliant goals.
Like most of us I expected us to kick on in the second half and really turn The Sheep into a ball of wool. I was also getting annoyed at Lenny for not making the subs after an hour as anyone could see some of our players were out on there feet, no more so than Broony imo.
Upon reflection I know think this was a brilliant bit of management from Lenny. Why? I believe now he was using the second half in order to work upon seeing out a game in the right manner. Of course we could have gone on to score more goals but seeing out the game in the way that we did, while as tired as we were, I believe was far more beneficial and a brilliant confidence booster moving forward for matches ahead.
So happy for Shane Duffy to get a good solid preformance behind him. Lennon also has a great insight now into how many minutes he can get from his players when you have tough pressure games coming thick and fast without much recovery time.
And the real beauty about yesterday apart from another Scottish Cup final to look forward to, is that we can and will get even better. Players coming back trying to get into this team will now know what the expectations and demand in quality are now. Competition for places has been set and players coming in now know of the standards needed to be maintained in order to keep their place in the side.
Yesterday was very pleasing day, so well done to Lenny and the Bhoys.
John No
John No is a well-known poster on Celtic Noise.