Neil Lennon has hinted that Christopher Jullien’s chance to shine at Parkhead could be a short while yet.
Jullien has slowly been building up his fitness since signing for Celtic last month. The Frenchman is the most expensive defender in Celtic’s history, after costing the club £7million from Toulouse (Scottish Sun).
He arrived, of course, without having played a single minute of action or having trained in one pre-season session. Therefore, work had to be done from scratch on him. Despite impressing against Rennes for an hour almost two weeks ago, the Celtic manager still refused to throw him in for the Sarajevo second-leg last week at Parkhead.
And, speaking at his press conference via Celtic TV today, Lennon hinted that Jullien may still need to wait a little longer yet.
Christopher Jullien’s chance will come in time
This is good man-management by Lennon here. Many of us are keen to see Jullien thrown into the squad at the first moment possible. The fact he cost so much money certainly helps increase the excitement levels.
But, looking at it from Lennon’s point of view, he doesn’t feel he can justify dropping his current defenders at the moment. Kristoffer Ajer and Jozo Simunovic have performed well in the qualifiers. Nir Bitton, as much as he isn’t a natural centre-back, clearly has the support of Lennon too. If the manager thinks all of them are performing well enough, he’s right to think they should carry on playing.
Lennon doesn’t seem worried about the situation. He knows there will come a time when it’ll be clear that Jullien must be given his chance. But at this stage, it doesn’t seem as though that opportunity is going to come in tomorrow night’s clash with Nomme Kalju.
It doesn’t send out the right message to the players currently performing if they’re just shifted. They’re currently all earning their spots in the team in the manager’s eyes. Therefore, he’s quite right to not rock the boat at the moment.
Should we progress past Nomme Kalju, of course, that could be the time for Jullien to step in. With a Scottish Premiership opener against St Johnstone coming up on August 3rd, that looks like a great opportunity to integrate Jullien into things. With Simunovic suspended for the opening two league games of the season, it seems like the natural replacement.
But, for now, it looks like the big Frenchman will have to keep waiting for a short while yet. Does that mean that Bitton and Simunovic will get the nod at centre-back again tomorrow? That may very well be the case.
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