Celtic v Aberdeen: Neil Lennon looking for ‘bit of devil’ to stoke fire in Celtic’s bellies

GIVEN Celtic’s recent domestic form, and their run of results in Europe over the last few years, Neil Lennon’s delight at their draw in Rennes on Thursday night was understandable.

The point keeps them in contention in Europa League Group I, and for the second game running they proved capable of staging a fightback, albeit after suffering self-inflicted wounds.

The character shown was a particularly encouraging sign for the manager as he looks ahead to tomorrow’s SPL match at home to Aberdeen. The last three times they have played away in Europe, Celtic have lost their next domestic game. Now, having displayed a little more consistency, they have encouraged Lennon to believe the improvement could be longer-lasting.

“They should be feeling good about themselves, because they’ve played and competed very well against a very good side,” he said on the way back from Brittany yesterday. “It’s not often we’ve come away with any sort of result. It’s a step in the right direction as far as Europe’s concerned, and as far as the league’s concerned we’ll have to take it forward into Sunday.

“Hopefully this will give us momentum. I think consistency in games has been lacking. We’ve played well in patches in games, but that’s not enough.”

One of the problems, according to Lennon, is that his team lacks the kind of grit that he added to the Celtic midfield as a player himself. “They’re young, and a nice bunch of boys. Sometimes you want a wee bit of the devil to manifest itself.

“The reaction’s good and we’re looking for a wee bit more of that come the difficult times. We need a wee bit of leadership.”

Lennon exempted Anthony Stokes from the charge of being too nice, saying the striker had “plenty of the devil in him”, and the injured Scott Brown would surely also be omitted from the “too nice” category. Otherwise, the manager’s analysis seems an apt one for a team which lost three goals in the first half to Kilmarnock, and gave away another goal with a howler on Thursday night.

Nonetheless, for a club of Celtic’s stature it still seems curious that Lennon is painting them as plucky underdogs. Yes, two away draws in their last two games isn’t too bad, but the results were as much down to luck as pluck – Paul Heffernan’s missed header in stoppage time could have won that game for Kilmarnock, and Stade Rennais had late chances too. So there was a very narrow margin between the two encouraging draws which came about, and the two demoralising defeats which might have resulted.

And if the latter not the former had materialised, there would have been a whole lot more pressure on Lennon from the club’s supporters if not from the board of directors – who, he insisted again yesterday, have never suggested his job is under threat.

“I’ve had no pressure from anybody upstairs,” he stated. “The only pressure comes from myself. I find being 3-0 down at half-time unacceptable myself. There’s no indication from anybody on the board that my job’s under threat.”

Lennon would hardly render himself a hostage to fortune by making such claims if they were not true, and Celtic majority shareholder Dermot Desmond and chief executive Peter Lawwell may well harbour the hope that he can steadily mature as a manager and become the long-term holder of the post. Nonetheless, judged by any of the usual footballing criteria, his job cannot be deemed safe.

After just a quarter of the league campaign Celtic are already ten points behind Rangers in the league. They have been knocked out of European competition once already, before Uefa gave them Sion’s place, and are favourites to be eliminated a second time in the coming weeks.

The players who claimed the draw in Rennes may have displayed a willingness to work for Lennon, but there are doubts over the willingness of other squad members to do so, with Kris Commons for one appearing distinctly unhappy at the moment. Every club has one or two malcontents at any given time, but if results do not take the upturn Lennon is looking for, the number of them at Celtic Park could start to grow. And in that case, even the most supportive of directors might be forced to contemplate unpalatable options.

Having said all that, it should be added that two factors could be of significant help to Lennon – one over the next few weeks, the other for months to come if not longer. The first is the benign run of fixtures that Celtic now face domestically; the other, longer-term one is the possible plight of Rangers.

Aberdeen tomorrow will be no pushovers, but after that Celtic face a sequence of games which gives them every chance to rediscover their best form. They visit Hibernian in the League Cup quarter-final on Wednesday, are at home to the Edinburgh club in the SPL three days later, and then after a demanding visit to Motherwell face Caley Thistle, St Mirren and Dunfermline. If they negotiate the Fir Park trip without defeat they may come close to doubling their present points tally by the end of next month.

It is harder to judge, of course, how any further worsening of Rangers’ financial position might benefit Celtic. Lennon’s club should have taken advantage of the budgetary restrictions at Ibrox over the past three seasons, but failed to do so. If the picture for Rangers becomes considerably darker, however, surely the Celtic manager can hardly fail to take advantage on the field of play.