Full Celtic Media Conference: Neil Lennon (04/02/2020)

"Motherwell are a good side and they play good football. We’ve negotiated the last two games against them quite well and we’ll need to be at our best tomorrow."

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[WolfeTone]

All looking good & great to hear that Elyanoussi is back in the squad & Frimpong hopefully back next week. There should be no excuses now as long as we treat every game as a Cup final. It’s important we take full advantage, while Rangers are dropping points. It’s also important that we keep our discipline & get no unnecessary red cards. Come on the Bhoys 🍀🍀

[weetim]

Finally addressed the shved dilemma, poor lad, can see hes got bags of ability

[DwayneMuffin]

Looking forward to tonight, won't be no walk in the park but if Celtic show up it's another 3PTS! I'll be watching from Ibiza :)

[bingobango]

Elhammed. Hurry up and get back in the team!

[derekeccles]

It's fairly simple SHVED IS A GAME DAY Player, some players don't train well or look lackadaisical but when it comes to game time they come to life, RELEASE SHVED

[ChrisMc]

Mind back when BR left and we all dreaded the idea of Lenny back at Paradise? How foolish of us, he's clearly the right man for the job. A draw and 2 losses at this stage in the league.. if you asked me at the start of the season if I'd like to be sitting where we are, I'd have jumped all over it like Morelos jumped on McKenna's baws 🤭😂🍀💚🇮🇪

[josephmaxwell]

Once again, mumbled questions that completely detract from an otherwise good interview.🙊😇😎🍀

[tamptv]

Glad he’s finally actually said something about Shved rather than just leaving us thinking he’s basically dead to the team 😂

[CatsRUs]

Lennon once again talking absolute bollocks about Shved in finding bullshit excuses not to play him, the treatment top attacking players like Rogic, Shved, Arzani & Karamoko have been given from Lennon in relation to their lack of game time this season has been nothing short of disgraceful, the same could also be said for the likes of Bitton, Taylor, Kouassi, Sinclair, Bayo (only been given two starts this season in which he scored in both) & more recently Klimala & most likely Soro shortly too. They all should have had far, far more game time than they've already had this season. Lennon has treated them with utter contempt whilst his undroppables (Ajer, Brown, McGregor & Forrest) put in two of the worst performances possible against Sevco last December & yet are bulletproof from being dropped.

It wasn't long ago in Dubai Lennon was praising how well Shved & Arzani trained, since then, Arzani has had 10 mins against Patrick Thistle & Shved hasn't even been named on the bench once. Shameful way to treat top players because you're too weak to drop your under performing favorites.

What kind of excuse is it to say a lack of English has prevented Shved from game time? There are many examples of players who speak little to no English yet it doesn't affect their performances on the park, the likes of Nakamura & French Eddy being two examples, even that mutant Morelos doesn't speak English yet doesn't affect him either on the park. Klimala speaks little English but has been at least on the bench every game since he's signed so far, so why hasn't Shved? They all speak the language of football when they're on the park. So that's us resolved the language excuse from Lennon being a load of pish.

Then there's the argument he doesn't train well enough, I'm calling bollocks on that too, for the simple reason being, if Bayo worked harder in training than Eddy, would Bayo start over Eddy? If Jack Hendry had worked harder in training than Jullien, would Hendry have started over Jullien? Of course they wouldn't because Eddy is far better than Bayo & Jullien is far better than Hendry. So again, another nonsense excuse from Lennon.

Nakamura had his own personal translator at the club, why not the same for Shved? Also, if Shved isn't even going to get near the bench nevermind the first team, why not loan him out to

Here's the facts, Shved is a better player than Forrest at RW, Lenny knows that however his Golden Bhoy Forrest can't be dropped under any circumstance regardless of his form because Lennon has a personal relationship with Forrest off the park that stretches way back over a decade from when Lennon was his youth coach for the reserves. Lenny even said in an interview the other day that Forrest has a great scoring record against Oldco/Newco, Forrest has got 2 goals in 23 appearances against Oldco/Newco, if Lennon deems a good scoring record it tells you how far he will go to back his golden bhoy.

The real reason Shved hasn't been loaned out is because he would prove at that he's a far better than Forrest and Lennon doesn't want everyone to realise this because he will then be questioned about Shveds lack of game time when he's performing so well elsewhere.

We've seen this before with Lennon playing his weaker favorite players ahead of better players in the past so it's nothing new from him, he once selected Mulgrew ahead of Ledley in midfield which tells you exactly how far Lennon will go to get his personal favorites in the team no matter how bonkers it is.

[bencb]

‘Motherwell play good football’. Did I just hear that right? And this guy is the Celtic manager who thinks lumping it long, to a lanky striker in Chris Long who has the first touch of a trampoline is good attractive football and something to be admired