Nir Bitton has disclosed that he hasn’t spoken to Celtic boss Neil Lennon since he declared himself fit to play for Israel, the Scottish Sun reports.
Bitton was determined to play in Israel’s Euro 2020 play-off semi-final against Scotland on Thursday. Even though it came only a week after he suffered an ankle injury playing for Celtic. He played the 120 minutes of football at Hampden.
Now Bitton has said that he hasn’t spoken to Lennon about his decision. However, he let Celtic know he was determined to play in the play-off.
“I was going to give it a chance”
“I didn’t speak to him (Lennon). It was between the national team and Celtic. But for my side, I always told Celtic that I was going to give it a chance and obviously if I didn’t feel good I wouldn’t play” Bitton said, as quoted by the Scottish Sun.
Bitton went on to state that he doesn’t yet know if he will feature in Israel’s upcoming Nations League games.
“I don’t know if I will travel with the team for the next two games, it is a decision to be made by the coach and the medical staff. I gave everything to take part in this game, this is a game that really was my target” he concluded.
Manager said injury would keep player out for a while
It is laudable that Bitton wanted to play for his country in such a big game. However, it can’t be forgotten that Neil Lennon said, as reported by 67HH, that Bitton would miss three or four weeks of action with his ankle injury.
It was a controversial decision made by Bitton, and only time will tell if it was the right one. Players don’t usually play 120 minutes of football only a week after being forced off less than 10 minutes into a game. However, that’s what Bitton did.
Bitton’s first conversation with Neil Lennon when he returns to Celtic Park will no doubt be a very interesting one. Hopefully it doesn’t concern Bitton having aggravated his ankle injury, which would see him ruled out of action for a while.
Celtic do have cover for Bitton if he is injured. However, it would no doubt be annoying to Neil Lennon if this was the case. Bitton getting injured playing in a game he probably shouldn’t have been involved with would be frustrating.
In other news, Kris Ajer can be proud of his performance for Norway against Serbia even though they lost.
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