Neil Lennon: Under-performers have no Celtic future

PRESUMABLY they could predict what their manager was saying about them in a lecture theatre a floor up from the bowels of Hampden Park, where a succession of downcast and clearly shell-shocked Celtic players drifted out of the national stadium to face an uncertain future.

• Celtic's squad will require a radical overhaul in the summer, according to stand-in manager Neil Lennon

Neil Lennon was taking no prisoners in a post-match outburst which will have left them in little doubt of their shortcomings. Celtic had just lost to Ross County for the first time in the Parkhead club's history and the significance had to be acknowledged by the interim manager, who reacted to the dimming of his own job prospects with a damning indictment of those he will have to now seek to motivate ahead of tomorrow's league clash with Motherwell. But in the late afternoon of Saturday it felt like there was no tomorrow for Lennon and his players.

"You can see why Tony Mowbray lost his job," seethed the interim manager. "Some of them don't deserve to be here. If I'm not here next season, I'm pretty sure some of them won't be here either."

Some Celtic players showed more spine after the game than during it and consented to try and make sense of a result which leaves them with nothing to play for this season, save for bidding to ward off the challenge from a revived Dundee United and hold on to second-place.

The absence of desire on Saturday suggests that even this moderate ambition could be beyond them.

This was a common theme visited after the game, with both Lennon and skipper Scott Brown highlighting the lack of determination shown. Celtic had the big names while Ross County had all the big hearts.

"We were not good enough from the first minute," said Brown, whose own performance fell below the standard expected of him.

"Ross County played a lot better than we did and they deserved to go through to the cup final.

"I can't say anything except the 11 players on the park didn't play to their full potential. Ross County wanted it more than us."

Brown absolved Lennon of any blame for the capitulation. The skipper accepted that, following the departure of Tony Mowbray and this result's likely termination of Lennon's dream to manage the club on a permanent basis, the players had to take responsibility for a slide which has resulted in a number of casualties.

Mowbray, his assistant Mark Venus and Peter Grant have all left the club, and the players may well have fatally damaged Lennon's reputation in a single 90-minute outing.

"Lenny showed us enough before the game about Ross County and told us what they would do," he said. "He got it spot on. It was the ones on the park who didn't do their jobs. It's nothing to do with the manager or the coaches. They have done their job well. It's about the 11 men on the park and the split-second decisions that are being wrongly made at times.

"It's not the manager's fault," he stressed. "He picks the 11 he thinks is his strongest team for the game. We let him down, to be perfectly honest. I hope it doesn't affect his chances of getting the job. Lenny organised us perfectly. He showed us the videos and we couldn't have asked for any more. His training has been brilliant but we have let him down."

Unsurprisingly, such subdued reflection was a world away from the elated rattle heard coming from the lips of Ross County players and management. Michael McGovern twisted the knife for Celtic while highlighting that he had made just one save throughout the 90 minutes. McGovern, who sat on the bench for Celtic at two League Cup finals, expressed his surprise at how events unfolded against his old club.

"I had just one save to make from Fortune and just got a block on it really," he said. "I never expected such a quiet day. Before the game I expected more because of the standard of player we were playing against. All credit to the boys in front, they've been different class this year and made my job a hell of a lot easier."

"Celtic are not going through the best of times just now, but things go in cycles," he added. "I'm sure they will bounce back, but I didn't think too much about them today. It was more about us."

Derek Adams, Ross County's impressive young manager, would agree with his goalkeeper's contention. He made a forceful demand that his team be given the credit they deserved for a result he insisted he knew they were capable of achieving. He had been irked by the series of television and media pundits who had written off the club. Later, he expanded on these thoughts.

"I was annoyed, because pundits and ex-players already had Celtic in the final," he said. "It was like adding fuel to the fire for us. We were up against it in playing Celtic, but we had to have that belief, and we wanted to go and show these people (the pundits] that we could do it.

"We used that to our advantage," he said. "Even listening to the radio on the bus to the game, some of the things that were said on the radio only lifted the spirits of the boys."

There is something of the aesthete in Adams, and he invited any who remain sceptical that the Highlands can be home to such a progressive football club to come up and take a closer look.

"I don't know why people don't want to travel up north to watch football – they should because it is a beautiful area," he said. "People should travel all over the world to watch good football."