Lennon laments lack of belief

3 Oct 2011

NEIL Lennon last night admitted he was under growing pressure as Celtic manager and accused some of his players of not doing enough for the team. Celtic’s 2-0 defeat at Tynecastle was their third in only nine Clydesdale Bank Premier League games this season and their fifth in all competitions. They lost only four games in the whole of last season’s league campaign.

Going down to Rudi Skacel and Ryan Stevenson’s goals in Edinburgh meant they remain 10 points behind the leaders Rangers and they now have only one game in hand. They are still third in the table, behind Motherwell.

Lennon will also fine Kris Commons for the lunging tackle on Adrian Mrowiec which earned a straight red card between Hearts’ two second half goals. Although Commons was the only player Lennon named, he also criticised others for lacking belief. The Celtic manager has previously said he needs to win the league this season to be sure of keeping his job and that is becoming an even greater challenge after defeats to St Johnstone, Rangers and now Hearts.

“I am always going to be under pressure and I’m not going to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes,” he said. “We’ve lost three games already, we only lost four last season. It’s a difficult position that I’m in but I understand it.

“It is a concern, obviously. We have a game in hand but we have to win that and cut it to seven to eat away at it. I said to the backroom staff maybe we should look at changing the formation if it’s not working, or certainly the personnel. But the team today was certainly strong enough to win the game.

“I think there are two or three players off form. I’m not worried about a lack of desire but I’m worried about a lack of belief that they can’t pull it around at the moment. I am just really disappointed with our play in the final third.

“I’m maybe getting 100% commitment from them but I’m certainly not getting form. We said to them afterwards that a draw wouldn’t have been the worst result in the world and they just had to keep going.

“It was certainly apparent today [that the players don’t react properly to setbacks]. We said to them ‘people are asking questions about you, go out and show them that you can handle the pressure’. A strong mentality has to come from within the individuals. It’s an indefinable quality. We work very hard on giving them enough confidence but a few heads dropped after the sending off. There are a few players who have to look at themselves and ask if they are doing enough at the moment and, for me, they’re not.

“They’re going to have to meet the challenge to win the league, and I’m going to have to. There’s a lot of football to go, six or seven months of the season. What we have to start to do is start winning games consistently.”

Lennon admitted recent £2.2m striker Mohamed Bangura had “missed a dolly” by failing to convert a header. “My biggest bugbear about today is the amount of good chances we missed,” he said. “We were flagrant in front of goal, wasteful. I thought if we had got a goal it would have opened Hearts up and we would have won the game comfortably. The first goal changed the nature of the game and then we lost our discipline, or one player [Commons] lost his discipline and let us down badly. We are all disappointed. He’s let himself down and he’s let us down so he will be dealt with accordingly, in house.”

Gary Locke, the Hearts coach, praised his players for delivering a victory in front of watching owner Vladimir Romanov, but stressed they had to really get their season going by winning more consistently. “We have to build on this result because the story of the season has been good home form but not so good away from home,” said Locke.

“There’s no point getting carried away because we’ve beaten Celtic, we have to beat every team in the league.

“They have to apply themselves like that in every game and if they do we can have a right good season. The players get themselves up for these type of games, but the other games are just as important.”

Romanov had spoken to the players just before the game. “He just said ‘win’,” said Locke. “When he comes over he likes to have a little chat with the players. I’m not sure if him speaking to them makes a difference, but we let ourselves down against St Johnstone last week and we’ve worked hard on the training ground all week.”

While the Tynecastle coach may have been eager to highlight the application in training, David Templeton admitted that Romanov’s pre-match visits do serve as added inspiration. “It’s encouraging when the owner comes over,” said the Hearts winger. “He just has a few words and tells us to have a good performance. The owner comes into the meeting room before kick-off to give us encouragement and it worked.”

While the home side could take heart from the display at Tynecastle, the Celtic players were left to face only their own dismay. They have now lost three games this season, one less than the suffered during all of last term, and there is a realisation that they cannot allow the gap between them and Rangers at the top of the league to grow.

“We haven’t hit our full potential,” said Adam Matthews, the Celtic full-back. “We have good players and I am sure we can pull it back. We will gel eventually, but we are not very happy with the start we have made. If the gap gets any bigger then it makes our challenge even harder.”

Taken from the Herald