Lennon lines up Plan B for Bhoys
NEIL LENNON has admitted Celtic are already tracking a number of potential replacements for their star players in case irresistible offers are received this summer.
The Parkhead boss is braced for bids for the likes of keeper Fraser Forster and centre-back Virgil van Dijk, with English clubs poised to again flex their financial muscle.
Last summer, Lennon saw Victor Wanyama, Gary Hooper and Kelvin Wilson depart south for a combined fee in the region of £20million.
Asked if he anticipated less upheaval this time around, the Celtic manager said: ‘It’s a good question, and the honest answer is that I don’t know.
‘There will be suitors for a couple of our big players, and one or two are coming out of contract, so you’d have to expect they’ll be leaving.
‘Realistically, we have to expect another decent turnaround, with a few players going out and few coming in.
‘Bids are all but inevitable for a couple of our players — it’s just whether we accept them or not. But everyone has their price and we’re preparing with that in mind, looking at other options for the positions concerned.’
Lennon is planning to make personal checks on targets in the weeks ahead in the hope of turning up another bargain purchase in the mould of Wanyama or van Dijk.
‘We’re already looking at a few players we like, and with the league now settled, it gives me the space to go out myself and l ook at a few who are under consideration,’ he told FIFA.com.
‘But whether we can keep on unearthing little gems, or big gems, is another matter. Our strategy has worked on the whole, but other clubs are now looking at our model and trying to copy it. And you can’t always get your signings right.
‘You hope that your record of good ones outweighs the bad, because it’s such a crucial part of the job.’
The Celtic manager also revealed he was likely to return to Twitter, having closed his account last December. Lennon believes those involved in football can embrace social media — as long as they remain within certain boundaries.
‘They have asked me to come back and I think I probably will because I did enjoy it,’ he said of Twitter. ‘The problem was that it started taking up too much of my time. But I certainly don’t have a problem with the players going on and engaging in that type of thing.
‘What’s made very clear, though, is that there’s a line they cannot cross. They know where that line is.
‘It’s important to realise that social media is here to stay and, as long as it doesn’t detract from my players’ duties to this club, I don’t have a problem with it.
‘Like everything in life, there are good things and bad things about it. What I don’t like, say with the criticism of David Moyes recently, is the type of criticism that comes from it — almost trying to humiliate the man. I find that very crass and, unfortunately, it seems to go with the territory these days.
‘I’m not sure whether someone like David is sensitive to it, but he’s a human being at the end of the day and he has a family who must read some of this stuff.
‘ Constructive criticism you expect, but the poisonous stuff — and I’ve had it myself — leaves a bitter taste.’