Neil Lennon convinced Mohamed Bangura will ‘come good’

CELTIC manager Neil Lennon has pointed to the experience of Ki Sung-Yeung at the Glasgow club in cautioning against making any rash judgments about Mohamed Bangura, right. The Sierre Leone striker has made no impact since joining from Aik Stockholm on the last day of the summer transfer window, the striker not helped by two spells out injured.

Lennon remains unperturbed about the progress of the youngster, who has made two starts, maintaining that his current pursuit of a forward is no reflection on the player, who is an “on the shoulder” type and not the target man they need.

“He’s had injuries and he probably needs a bit of time,” Lennon said. “He is only 22. I’ve no concern about him in terms of getting him out the door. It’s been suggested we’d want to get him out the door but that’s not the case at all.

“He has only been in the door for four or five months but you know what it’s like, in this environment people judge you very quickly. I see a different player every day. He is working on his game to improve and he will feature towards the run-in.

“He’s like Ki Sung Yueng to a certain extent. His first season didn’t go as well as we would have hoped but he has blossomed now. Mo is a talented player and I think he will come good.”

What played badly for Bangura is he arrived as the club were trying to sign Baba Diawara, who went on to be top scorer in the Portuguese league for Maritimo and just moved to Seville in a £2.5m deal. Lennon added: “We were thinking about signing both him and Diawara at the same time but we were always going to sign Mo anyway. The Baba thing just didn’t work out,” he said.