Neil Lennon says Celtic will come down hard on Olivier Ntcham following the Frenchman’s latest comments.
Last week, the 23-year-old spoke to French outlet L’Equipe and stressed that it was the right time to move away from Celtic.
He said: “Games came one after another but with respect to my opponents, if the level isn’t high, you don’t progress. I was really disappointed not to have gone to Porto last summer.
“What could be the perfect stage for me? A big championship: Germany, France, Spain – coming back to France would be something very, very good.”
The comments weren’t received well by Celtic supporters, and it seems Lennon has joined the list of those wanting to tell the midfielder what he thinks. The BBC has some quotes from the Northern Irishman and he doesn’t seem a happy bunny.
“You can imagine, we find the comments untimely and not particularly accurate,” Lennon said.
“I think it is fair to say that a lot of us, would it be management, players or people at the club, were not satisfied with the comments.
“That will be addressed when Olivier comes back.
“When I speak to Olivier, it will be done privately, but I will be speaking to him about his mindset and his attitude towards the club as well, which, the way it came across, didn’t look good.”
Lennon is flexing his muscles with Ntcham
Lennon’s stance on the Ntcham matter just goes to show that he’s maturing into the manager’s role once again. The Northern Irishman would perhaps have been reluctant to slag off a Brendan Rodgers player while in interim charge, but now he’s in control.
In terms of Ntcham, it’s hard to see a way back for the midfielder. Given the interest in the 23-year-old and the fact he seems unhappy, Celtic may be as well lowering their asking price.
We paid £4.5million for the midfielder in 2017 so if we could get £6/7million now it may be worth taking. Celtic can’t afford to have a talented multi-million pound player sitting on the bench all season.
We’d be as well getting the money in and replacing him with a player who actually wants to be here.
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