Marvin Compper can forget Celtic chance after Sunday

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Marvin Compper was last month thrown a lifeline by interim manager Neil Lennon.

Despite only making one Celtic appearance in his Parkhead career so far, it looked as though Compper had a chance of making the first-team squad for the first time since January 2017.

The big centre-back cost the club around £1million from Leipzig. It’s fair to say, however, that Celtic have had absolutely no return on it.

And Compper’s lifeline clearly didn’t mean too much either.

What makes us say that? Just look at the situation Celtic found themselves in at Dens Park on Sunday.

Dedryck Boyata missed out on the squad. Meanwhile, Filip Benkovic had only just recovered from an ankle injury that ruled him out for two months. Kristoffer Ajer also had to go off, and even Jack Hendry wasn’t deemed worthy enough to make the squad.

That means that four Celtic centre-backs were either injured, couldn’t finish the game, or had only just come back from injury.

Meanwhile, Compper has started the last several matches for the reserves. He’s helped fire them to the top of the Reserve League, and it was fair to suggest that he was trying to rebuild his reputation at the club.

But even Mikael Lustig started at centre-back on Sunday, and he’s not even first-choice in his natural right-back position.

How desperate to things need to be for him to be involved?

If Lennon’s olive branch to Compper was genuine, you have to wonder how desperate things have to be for him to be included in Celtic’s plans.

It could be the case that Lennon was eyeing up matches for him AFTER the Hoops had won the league title. With a current 10-point gap in place between first and second, Celtic could have several matches left in the Premiership after the league is won.

Compper has to pray that he’s included in those, or else it would appear that Lennon doesn’t see anything in him.

At the moment, Lennon’s comments about Compper seem to have an aim of keeping him happy. The interim Celtic manager’s squad selections since haven’t involved the German.

Is his time at Celtic truly up? Is there anything he can do to get back into Lennon’s plans? Was Lennon simply keeping a lid on things when speaking about him previously? Let us know your thoughts on this one in the comments below.