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Where does Lennon go from here?

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Now the dust has settled on a frantic weekend of football and Celtic lick the wounds of another two points dropped. Where does Neil Lennon go from here?

How does he get the team defending better? How does he win a section of the fans over that have already turned on him? How can he get the title race back on track?

There seems to be two main concerns for the Celtic fans. Post match comments and in game substitutions. At the early part of the season, fans were confused at Lennon’s after match comments especially after a poor performance:

After the 1-0 win at Dundee Utd the Celtic performance was below par but Lennon said “The players’ attitude was tremendous, they didn’t get frustrated and kept going. We got the goal we thoroughly deserved – we were outstanding at times. I think 1-0 flattered Dundee United.”

Against St Mirren at Love Street, Celtic had to overturn a 1-0 deficit after Erwin put the home side ahead and goals from Duffy and Christie helped bring the three points to Parkhead. Lennon said after the game:

We had a poor start but our reaction was excellent, we played with real intensity and thoroughly deserved to go into half-time with the lead. Overall I’m delighted. We’ve closed the gap, it’s a great win, and we’ve made use of the extra game.”   

These quotes have left Celtic fans baffled. Many claim what the manager is watching must be different from what they are watching. Many also wanted the manager to call out these poor performances in post match conferences and stop claiming the team where “excellent”. Fast forward to the present day and Lennon has so far called out performances for being “lazy” and “soft”  and has called out Scott Brown for his part in the Hibs penalty and conforming that Ryan Christie want a new challenge. Now it seems fans are unhappy at this and would prefer to keep all issues in house.

Many fans are concerned at Lennon’s substitutions, or more specifically, the timing of his subs. But are the subs really the issue?

Against Dundee Utd at Tannadice in the 1-0 win, Celtic were toiling and struggling to break the deadlock. Lennon made changes and on the 73rd minute, brought on Ajeti and the striker scored the winner with seven minutes to go.

Against Kilmarnock in the 1-1 draw, with 66 minutes gone, Lennon went with two up front in search of the winner but despite having 70% possession and seventeen shots, only two hit the target.  The sub was correct, the finishing was not.

In the 2-0 win at St Johnstone, the Celtic gaffer made two big calls, replacing Edouard with Klimala and Moi with Griffiths. The two subs scored the goals in stoppage time to grab all three points for the Hoops.

In the 3-3 draw with Aberdeen, Celtic trailed 2-1 and Lennon made a double sub with Griffiths and Brown replacing Ajeti and N’tcham. Eight minutes later Griffiths and Christie score, and if not for a lack of defensive concentration by Duffy, the three points would have been heading to Glasgow.

Most recently, in the 2-2 draw with Hibs. Lennon subbed Ajeti with Edouard in the 58th minute and  Moi and Brown with Griffiths and Duffy on the 72nd minute. Edouard scores on the 79th minute and in a final substitution Rogic was replaced with N’tcham. This allowed the wing backs to push further up the pitch and Laxalt then scores in the equaliser in the 91st minute. So arguably, the substitutions worked. Again.

It seems that Lennon is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. One thing is for sure. Maximum points must be taken in December to avoid further calls for the Celtic boss to go.

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