No strikers, no problembl /‘I’lli’ll lilive and die by my decisions’ says Lennon
Neil Lennon insists he will “live and die” by the decisions he makes as Celtic manager after opting not to pick a recognised striker in his star ting line -up for the second consecutive match.
With Od son ne Edoua rd and Leigh Gr if fiths still injured, Lennon ignored criticism of his team selection for last Wednesday’s Champions League defeat against Ferencvaros by naming an unchanged side for the Pre - miership fixture against Mother well at Celtic Park yesterday with strikers Al b ian Aje ti and Patr yk Klimala again on the bench.
Ajeti appeared in the second half to score the second goal in a 3-0 win for the Scottish champions in which James Forrest and Christopher Jullien were also on target.
“I make decisions and you live and die off them for what you think is for the benefit of the club,” said Lennon.
“It’s not some sort of ego trip. I have always put the players first and the club first.
“You’ve just got to go with your
gut instinct to go with the same team. I thought that, in isolation, we dominated Ferencvaros and should have won – we didn’t.
“Then it’s all down to the fact we didn’t play a centreforward, but none of them is fit enough to star t and you can see that today.
“I expected criticism after the Ferencvaros game and the volume of criticism is sometimes out of sync and balance. But you learn to live with that and we had a g o o d r e s p o n s e t o d a y from the players. No one is more sore about going out of the Champions League than myself. It’s on my CV now, that result, but I have to park that and move forward.”
L e n n o n r e v e a l e d t h a t Edouard, inset, has been w i t h d r a w n f r o m t h e Fr e n c h u n d e r -2 1 s q u a d , w h i l e h e i s c o n c e r n e d b y A j e t i ’s i n c l u s i o n i n the Swiss squad for their Nations League matches against Ukraine and Germany.
“We’ve an issue because Albian has been called up and we have let the Swiss know he is not fully match fit,” said Lennon.
“S o wh e t h - e r h e g o e s and comes b a c k o r d o e s s o m e conditioning work and maybe plays ten or 15 minutes I don’t know.
“I’ve not said I don’t want him to play, but he is not match fit. They will take a view on that when they see him and Albian is of the same opinion.”
Lennon, who is hopeful he will add “one or t wo” new signings during the international break, confirmed that Celtic are close to making a decision on the future of Boli Bolingoli after the Belgian full-back r e c e i ve d a t h r e e - m a t c h ban from the S cottish FA for the breach of Covid-19 protocol which forced two of his club’s league matches to be postponed.
“There will be a disciplin a r y s a n c t i o n f r o m t h e c l u b a s we l l ,” s a i d L e n - non. “We will take stock of things over the next week or so and take a decision on what we do.
“I wo u l d n’t b e s o d e f i - nite (as to say his career at Celtic is over), but it might b e s o m e t h i n g we t h i n k about.”