Neil Lennon praises 'exceptional' Celtic star after victory over Lille in Europa League

Neil Lennon praised the performance of an “exceptional” David Turnbull and admitted other fringe players had given him food for thought following Celtic's Europa League victory over Lille.

David Turnbull celebrates scoring the winning goal for Celtic. Picture: SNS

The under-fire manager made six changes to the side that had drawn with St Johnstone at the weekend with the likes of Turnbull, Ismaila Soro and young goalkeeper Conor Hazard being granted an opportunity to impress.

Turnbull was the headline act. The summer signing from Motherwell crossed for Christopher Jullien’s opener, played in Jeremie Frimpong to win the penalty (converted by Callum McGregor) to make it 2-1, then netted the winner himself after ex-Celtic loanee Timo Weah had tied things up.

“He's been excellent,” Lennon responded when asked about the midfielder on BT Sport. “He obviously had the coronavirus which laid him up for a while so we had to be careful with him.

“I thought he did well on Sunday and he was exceptional tonight, not just in his goal but his all-round play was very good.

“We know what a good talented player he is and hopefully we see the best of him going forward.

“We had a lot of bonuses tonight. Soro, I thought was excellent, David, [Patryk] Klimala, young Euan Henderson had a fine game as well. It was the first time [Christopher] Jullien and [Shane] Duffy had played together, and Conor Hazard in goal, so there were a lot of pluses tonight.

"Conor has been knocking on the door, training-wise, for a long time. I told him a couple of weeks ago that I’d get him in for the Lille game.

"He was excellent. He made a really important save when we were 3-2 up. We’re delighted with the progress he’s making.”

Asked whether he thought tonight was the right performance and result to kick-start their ailing season, Lennon responded: “I’ve got a lot of belief. There’s a long way to go. We’ve been off the boil for whatever reason but there’s a good vibe about them at the minute and we wanna keep that going.

"When a few players have a dip in form at the same time you always hear these things like ‘no desire, bad attitude’ but I don’t see that with these guys. Hopefully that win will be a catalyst.”

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