Lennon silent on McGinn

NEIL LENNON last night sidestepped questions on John McGinn as Hibs braced themselves for a second bid from Celtic for their gifted midfielder. With the Parkhead side also ready to receive an offer from Everton for Kieran Tierney, Lennon’s No 2 Garry Parker insisted that their player remains unaffected by the speculation over his future. Scotland international McGinn was left out of the Hibs squad for last night’s 6-0 friendly win at Berwick Rangers, just 48 hours after his club had turned down an initial £1.5million offer from the Premiership champions. However, the

official line from the club was that McGinn had been rested along with fellow first-team regulars like Florian Kamberi, Marvin Bartley and Darren McGregor. There appeared to have been no further contact between Celtic and Hibernian. Lennon’s side enjoyed a comfortable win at Shielfield Park, courtesy of goals from Oli Shaw, Simon Murray, David Gray, Steven Whittaker and Lewis Allan, as they prepare for next Thursday’s visit of Faroe Islands side NSI Runavik in the Europa League qualifiers. But the Hibs boss elected not to speak to the media after the final whistle, although it is understood the Northern Irishman’s stance was not directly related to Celtic’s pursuit of McGinn. Instead, he left the talking to Parker, who said of McGinn: ‘We just need to get on with things. Celtic have submitted a bid as we all know, but he is our player at the moment. ‘I don’t know what price we would be looking for. You would need to ask the board that. ‘But nothing fazes John. He will be playing on Sunday in (Paul Hanlon’s testimonial) game against Blackburn and we are looking forward to that ahead of a big match against Runavik. ‘Tongues will always be wagging but John was just being rested tonight, like Marv (Bartley) and Flo (Kamberi).’ Meanwhile, Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers has confirmed that midfielder Nir Bitton will be out of action for another two months. The Israeli international went under the knife in February after being struck down by a knee problem. Bitton elected to travel to Belgium for surgery in an attempt to rectify the issue and his manager says his recovery remains on track. ‘Nir is still in rehab,’ said Rodgers. ‘He’s probably going to be out until September time. ‘That was the target from when he had the operation, so we have him pencilled in for then.’