Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
LENNON: I JUST LOVE THESE BRAVE BHOYS
NEIL LENNON insists it’s a privilege to be in charge of his Celtic squad after taking another huge stride towards wrapping up the Premiership.
The champions rescued a point at Livingston last night thanks to Tom Rogic’s stoppage time leveller – and increased their lead at the top to 13 points on the back of Rangers crashing to defeat to Hamilton.
Lennon felt his men deserved to win in West Lothian but accepted the draw with the high-flying Lions could prove to be pivotal in the title race.
The Celtic boss was convinced his men would come back and said: “I was pleased with them all. The whole team was brilliant. It’s a privilege to manage this team. I’m delighted with the performance, we deserved all three points. I was disappointed with manner of their goals.
“Their first could have been a foul on Fraser Forster, the second was poor from our point of view – but the rest of the game we were magnificent. Against a difficult opponent on a difficult pitch we were absolutely outstanding and I had total belief we could get an equaliser and Tom came up with the goods.
“Livingston were hanging on and we broke them and got the least that we deserved.”
Lennon insisted he was paying no attention to news from Ibrox as Steven Gerrard’s side slipped further back. But he hailed his own players for refusing to accept defeat after Jon Guthrie and Scott Robinson overturned Callum Mcgregor’s strike to threaten Celtic’s unbeaten start to 2020.
Lennon said: “You can’t be giving away sloppy goals. We set high standards and that’s the first points we’ve dropped in 2020 but in the context of the evening it was good.
“It was always going to be a tough fixture but the way we played pleased me more than anything. We were brilliant, relentless.
“I don’t think Livingston offered anything other than long throws and the odd breakaway. We were entertaining.”