IT’S NO BIG DEAL
Lenny defends Celtic’s summer signing policy and insists it’s quality over quantity for Bhoys
NEIL LENNON has been around Glasgow long enough to know how it works when it comes to the Old Firm phony cold war.
He’s heard all the chat about for every fiver we’ll spend a tenner but the Celtic boss has no interest in getting into an arms race with the rivals from over the river.
Lennon knows Hoops fans are on tenterhooks for new arrivals and every time another player checks in at Ibrox it only intensifies their growing sense of tension.
Steven Gerrard currently leads 8-3 on new recruits but Celtic are out in front when it comes to spending, with the Hoops spending more than £10million on their new men while Gers have coughed up £1m on seven arrivals, but with another £4m heading out for Filip Helander.
But it matters not a jot for Lennon. He sees Celtic rebuilding from a position of strength and having landed Christopher Jullien, Boli Mbombo and Luca Connell, he has specific targets in mind rather than wholesale changes.
And he couldn’t care less about business getting done across town. Lennon said: “I can’t affect what Rangers do. It’s not one of those situations where if they spend £4m then we want to spend £8m. It’s not like that.
“We just want to get the right players in if the price is good and we think there’s quality and resale value in them as well.
“We have to focus on ourselves. You can’t affect what’s going on elsewhere. You can’t – and we won’t.
“Are we in the same market for players? We might be but that creates its own issues. Sometimes agents play one against another and I don’t want to get involved in any of that nonsense either.”
It’s not like Lennon has been twiddling his thumbs pondering new deals. Celtic have been on the chase but finding it tough to crack certain markets like down south.
Players such as Tommy Smith and Romaine Sawyers would do the job at Parkhead but prices get inflated when English teams get out their chequebooks.
Celtic will splash the cash – but won’t pay over the odds.
But it can all change quickly and with the next European deadline coming up on Thursday, Lennon wants to get a shift on.
He said: “There’s a lot of work being done in the background. We had a four-hour recruitment meeting on Wednesday on two positions. It’s quite energy sapping sometimes.
“We’ve got four or five days and you can do a deal in three or four hours. It’s a question of whittling it down, is this the right price, the right age, the right wage?
“We have to filter that all down and we have been agonising over a lot of players over the last two or three weeks. We want to get it right. Not just for the sake of short-term.
“You get a price and then you know in a week or two it’s going to come down. Sometimes you have to be patient. If it’s a set fee you wash your hands of it and move on.”
It doesn’t take a genius to work out what Lennon is after. He needs at least one right-back, another striker and an attacking midfielder.
Celtic have the firepower to cope without two of the three but the other one won’t wait as the right-back role is becoming an urgent priority.
He said: “There’s a position that we’d like to bring two in. Maybe a younger one to develop and one that is ready to hit the ground running, a loan or permanent.
“It will depend if we have any bids for our players. Then we have to take a view on it if it’s the right thing for the club to do. We have to have options if that eventuality comes along.”
It’s not just incomings at Celtic. Lennon admitted there will be departures and while Kieran Tierney’s future remains in doubt, a chunk of the group will be heading out the door. He said: “We’ll trim the squad here and there as we go along. But nothing concrete at the minute.”
The same goes for Olivier Ntcham. The midfielder talking out of school back in France has not gone down well and there could be some stern opinions voiced when the playmaker reports back on Monday.
Ntcham broke ranks saying he wanted out and his manager admitted the player has some making up to do. Lennon said: “I don’t need to speak to him, he
has to come and see me, his team-mates and the club.
“We’ll see him on Monday and then he can start his pre-season work. He’s had two and a half weeks off so he won’t need a lot of conditioning work – maybe a bit upstairs.
“I will need to have a chat with him on that. It’s a question of sitting down and having it out with him. Finding out where that [his comments] came from and what his mindset is.
“It’s new to me. For him to go public about it without speaking to the club first is wrong – he is under contract.
“Whether he’s unhappy or not it shouldn’t have been made for public consumption the way he has done it.
“He will be reminded of his responsibilities while he is still here. If he wants to go, we will have to sit down and take a view on it.
“I don’t know if it has been prompted by him or someone else. We’ll get to the bottom of it when he comes in.”