Neil Lennon angry at Celtic set-piece failures

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Neil Lennon is keen to get Celtic improving on their set-pieces, after yet another blank from them against Hibernian.

The last time Celtic scored from a corner kick came in the 5-0 win over Hearts at Celtic Park. Filip Benkovic powered in a terrific header from a fine delivery, and it was picture-perfect.

But since then, the Hoops have offered nothing from them. That Hearts clash came in November, with Celtic consistently having to rely on goals from open play due to their deficiencies at corners and free-kicks.

The 0-0 draw against Hibernian on Sunday was just as frustrating as you would expect regarding set-pieces. And Lennon has demanded that it improves in the future. Speaking in the Evening Times, the interim boss said the following:

“We do, yeah (need to improve). Some of the deliveries were good and some were very, very poor. There’s an inconsistency there.

“We work on them, we practice them, but you need to get them right in the moment and give the lads a chance to go and actually attack the ball. We nearly got one at the end from a set play, Marciano made a great save from the header from Jozo.

“That pleases me obviously, but we need more of that, consistently.”

The deliveries have to be worked on

How many of our set-pieces can you truly say have great deliveries played from them?

In recent weeks, Celtic have had the likes of Jonny Hayes and Ryan Christie over the dead ball. Neither have been up to much with their crossing despite it previously being one of their best traits.

It’s fair to say that Hayes’ crossing has perhaps been the most disappointing. For Aberdeen, he would constantly be troubling us with high-quality crosses into the penalty area, and it was always his main threat. But from set-pieces, he’s been just as poor as anyone at the club.

Against Hibs on Sunday, Hayes consistently failed to beat the first man with his corners and set-pieces. Outside of a late Jozo Simunovic header, there wasn’t much for those in the box to challenge for.

Perhaps some training ground moves would provide a bit of vibrancy to our corners. We haven’t seen any clever moves from our corner kicks at all in recent times. Lennon is clearly frustrated about how ineffective we are from them, so it’s time he started doing something about it.