Managerial talk has overshadowed poor Celtic January error

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The talk around Celtic this January has, unsurprisingly, been filled with Neil Lennon chat.

That’s understandable. It’s been the main talking point ever since October, and will continue to be so until the day he leaves the club. For many of us, we hope that’s sooner rather than later as Neil’s season continues to go from bad to worse.

Lennon was of course suffering heat long before the Dubai debacle at the start of the year. But the last three results have certainly increased the anger levels amongst the support.

And, in truth, they could easily have been avoided. Our 1-1 draw vs Hibs at Parkhead and 2-2 stalemate at Livingston were both courtesy of some dreadful defensive errors. Even the 0-0 game at Celtic Park with Livi saw our back-line struggle to cope despite the clean sheet.

Lennon stated at the beginning of the month that Celtic would look to bring in a new centre-back in the January window. This was down to the fact Chris Jullien picked up a nasty knee injury that will keep him out for a few months [Scottish Sun].

Fast forward over three weeks since those comments and there’s been absolutely nothing. There doesn’t even appear to be a defender even close to signing.

Celtic needed January reinforcements, but not on deadline-day

Instead, Celtic have had to get deep into crisis-management after the Dubai horror show. That’s totally covered the media coverage as has recent poor results. But it’s important not to forget that once again our failure to strengthen early in a window has come back to bite us.

A fresh and dominant centre-back could’ve halted Hibs’ late equaliser at Parkhead. They could’ve stopped Ciaran Brown having a free header on Wednesday night. Maybe even would’ve had the awareness to beware of a cutback for Jay Emmanuel Thomas’ equaliser.

Had we strengthened appropriately, we could be sitting at least four to seven points closer to Rangers. It wouldn’t have changed the fact that being so far behind is an absolute catastrophe. But it would’ve brought the club a bit of much-needed momentum after the loss to Ibrox on January 2nd.

Instead, we continue to sink further and further into disaster territory. At this point, you even wonder what the point is in signing a new defender. What’s he coming to fight for now? Why even allow Lennon the chance to sign someone else when his time is now so clearly up with the league now finally well and truly over in everyone’s minds?

The time for bringing someone on board was when the first-team was busy enjoying the sun in Dubai. At the very least we wouldn’t have had to put up with more Shane Duffy errors.

Yet the supporters have had to watch on as talents such as Mark McKenzie and Filip Benkovic have moved elsewhere. And who’s come through the Parkhead entrance? Peter Lawwell’s favourite signing – nobody.

In other news, a reliable Spanish journalist has provided an update on the Rafa Benitez to Celtic rumours.