Sky Sports pundit Davie Provan has tried to the lessen Celtic’s achievement of beating Lazio on Thursday night, writing in his regular Scottish Sun column on Sunday.
The Hoops secured a brilliant 2-1 victory over the Italians in the Europa League, despite going behind on the night.
Goals from Ryan Christie and Christopher Jullien had Celtic Park absolutely rocking, with no-one in attendance left in any doubt just how good a win it was.
Provan though feels differently, claiming the Italians lack quality.
As quoted by The Scottish Sun, he said: “In the aftermath of Celtic’s nerve-shredding win over Lazio, Neil Lennon could be forgiven for getting carried away. Still intoxicated by Christopher Jullien’s late winner he said, ‘that was a Champions League game for me tonight with the quality on show.’
“The Hoops boss was havering. Like all coaches, Neil talked up the opposition pre-match. Over in Porto, Steven Gerrard was doing the same thing.
“If managers bum up the opposition, it makes them look better when they get a result. Bottom line is neither Lazio nor Porto have real quality at the moment.”
Bizarre rant
I’m not quite sure why Provan has felt the need to stick the boot into Lennon’s comments or why he’s trying to take away from our brilliant three points, but he’s wrong in any case.
Lazio clearly do have quality that makes them a threat at Europa League level.
For starters their star striker Ciro Immobile was the top scorer in Serie A heading into the fixture. Although he started on the bench, when coming into the game he didn’t cause Fraser Forster any real problems.
With others rated as worth as much as £58.5m, like Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, it’s hard to see where the Sky Sports commentator is coming form.
It may not have been a result that wins us any trophies or guarantees European progression, but there’s no need to try and belittle what was a great night for Scottish football in general.
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