“We’ve had the luxury of having some days on the training ground together and we move on,” Neil Lennon said today as he spoke for the first time since that dreadfully disappointing weekend.
They may have been mitigating circumstances galore but nevertheless any Celtic team that puts in a gutless, hopeless performance against an Ibrox club is going to come in for criticism and ultimately the buck is going to stop right at the manager’s door.
Many Celtic fans have had enough. Never convinced by the appointment of Neil Lennon in the first place they are filling social media and forums with calls for a managerial change, there is even a hashtag – get Lennon out.
Others have done what supporters have traditionally done after a painful defeat against an Ibrox club, they simply avoid the media altogether. Indeed the build-up to a European fixture against a side of the calibre of AC Milan would whet the appetite of the support but instead there seems to be an apathy, with supporters dismissing this game as an irrelevance or writing off the Europa League Group campaign even before a ball has been kicked.
It is all so unlike Celtic Supporters just like ti team was frankly an embarrassment to the jersey on Saturday. As jobs in football go at the moment Neil Lennon’s in now one of the toughest. The road to redemption starts tomorrow night where a decent performance is all that is required to left spirits from the floor. But on Sunday it’s all about the three points. They are absolutely essential.
“We get our heads down and work hard but we also need to hold our heads high. There’s a long way to go. We’re not happy with the result but there’s plenty of time to improve and bounce back,” Neil Lennon said.
“We’re all disappointed but we’re not dwelling on it and we’re not smoothing things over as if everything is okay. We’re just going to work away and accept the criticism when it comes. I get that, we’ve been here before. We’re looking to react as positively as we can with a run of games where we play well and win.
“We weren’t very good on Saturday, particularly in the second half, and that’s on me. I have to take responsibility for the team performance and we’re working really hard in the background to get back to the penetrating quick football that we know we’re capable of doing. That’s what we’re looking for in the next three or four games to try and hit those heights again.”
Watch Neil Lennon’s full Conference from today ahead of the Europa League Group H opener against AC Milan tomorrow evening. The match is exclusively live on BT Sport.
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