Neil Lennon has compared Celtic’s current issues with Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in the English Premier League.
Both Celtic and Manchester City have dominated their respective leagues in recent years, but they haven’t started this current campaign as they would have liked.
Pep Guardiola’s side are sitting fourth in the Premier League table and have only won one game in six, whilst Brendan Rodgers watched his Celtic side suffer back-to-back Scottish Premiership defeat.
The feeling inside Celtic Park wasn’t great on Saturday, with chants of ‘sack the board’ ringing around the stadium.
There is a lot of pressure on Brendan Rodgers now, but Neil Lennon feels that he is going to be up to the ‘challenge’, as he told PLZ Soccer.
What Neil Lennon was also keen to highlight is that there is now a title race on, something which didn’t seem to be the case six weeks ago.
That just adds to the pressure, with Neil Lennon comparing Celtic’s current situation with Manchester City.
Celtic and Manchester City
“Rodgers will look forward to the challenge,” said Lennon. “There is no question there is a title race on. Sometimes that’s what you want as a neutral.
“There’s nothing come to me that says ‘Celtic can’t win the league’. They are just going through a bad run, at the minute. But because the bar has been so high for so long. A little blip, or maybe more than a little blip like this, it’s something the fans aren’t used to. But it’s part of football.
“I was down at the Etihad, they won the Treble last season. They have one game in five. They were 2-0 up (against Crystal Palace). Drew 2-2. Fans came off and there was a little bit of unrest.
“But there is an acceptance there that the manager has the team to sort this out. I feel it’s the same with Celtic.”
Celtic will bounce back
A lot has been said following that defeat to Hearts. You could understand the frustration of the fans from inside the stadium.
But now it’s time to move on and do the talking on the pitch. No need to panic. Just deliver the points against Livingston.
Yes, Rangers can overtake the Bhoys by winning their two games in hand. But there is still that meeting at Parkhead on December 30.
It was Celtic who won at Ibrox earlier on in the campaign and there is no reason why it can’t happen again.
And if it does, then the mood will change and the team will head into the New Year and the January transfer window top of the table.
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