Neil Lennon faces an intriguing test in his next game as Celtic manager. He takes his Hoops side to Aberdeen in the aftermath of an excellent 2-1 win over Lazio in the Europa League.
Lennon will be hoping to avoid a repeat of Celtic’s last league game they played after a Europa League group stage match.
In that game, Celtic travelled to Livingston and lost 2-0 and had Ryan Christie sent-off. That red card means that Christie, one of Celtic’s most important players, will miss the game against Aberdeen.
Lennon has revealed that he is taking steps to ensure that there is no repeat of the loss to Livingston.
“We’ve been studying”
“We’ve been studying Thursday to Sunday turnaround games. Discipline will be important for the players on Sunday” he told the Celtic Twitter account.
Perhaps that indicates that Lennon will make a few changes from the starting line-up that played against Lazio. There will be one change as Christie can’t play. Perhaps another three or four changes will freshen the team up.
Red card all but ended chances of victory
There is also the aspect of keeping discipline. Celtic’s chances of defeating Livingston all but ended when Christie was sent-off for a rash challenge.
That cannot be repeated against Aberdeen. It would make what could be a very difficult game for the Hoops even tougher.
If Celtic make the required changes that Neil Lennon has identified, and the team managers to maintain their discipline, then the Hoops should be more than good enough to get the three points if they play to the best of their abilities.
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