The reverberations of Celtic’s defeat to Borussia Dortmund continue as Neil Lennon weighs in where the blame lies for the Champions League humbling.
In fact, the former Celtic manager is adamant he knows where the blame doesn’t lie after he watched his old club ship another seven goals in Europe’s top competition.
Brendan Rodgers’ tactics have come into question after Celtic were exposed time and again by the Bundesliga club and suffered another heavy defeat at the hands of one of Europe’s big guns.
And looking over the result, Lennon shares why he thought Celtic were outclassed by last season’s Champions League runners-up.
Lennon: Celtic were ‘too nice’ vs Dortmund
The former Celtic boss admitted that he never really expected Brendan Rodgers‘ side to win, but he did expect the Hoops to go to Germany and show Nuri Sahin’s men what they were all about.
Lennon told TNT Sports, “Look, I didn’t expect Celtic to win. I expected them to give a good account of themselves with the form that they had and I also expected them to score, which they did.
“But they let the game get away from them. It was too passive. Far too passive with a passing you didn’t do the dirty bits of the game well enough.
“They weren’t physical enough, they were too nice and they didn’t turn Dortmund at all. They kept playing the same way, and the results were the same. Goal against, goal against, goal against.
“It’s a beautiful game, but it’s ruthless. And Celtic were exposed to name. There’s still lots of mileage in this group for them to go, but they’ve got to analyze and say themselves. We can’t do this away from home against top teams. We have to find another way of playing at times, it’s all right playing good football, but playing in the red areas.”
Lennon refuses to blame Brendan Rodgers
However, as the fingers are being pointed as to who is to blame for the defeat, Neil Lennon believes that there is one person at Celtic who should not be chastised for the result.
Lennon continued, “Can’t keep blaming the manager. Celtic have got a top manager in Brendan Rodgers.
“Yes, he wants his team to play football, but he did say, at times, we’re going to suffer during the game and they did suffer.
“And what you do when you suffer is you take the heat off yourself. You take the pressure off yourself. First of all, you win the ball, and then you get your widemen into the game with the pace and power that both Kuhn and Maeda have.
“They didn’t use that anywhere near enough with balls over the top or down the sides of the fullbacks, who I felt were there at times to be got at.
“In the end, little tippy tappy passes through the midfield, and those two guys in the studio will know, if we had done that in our playing days we would have got absolutely hammered for playing like that.”
Unfortunately for Rodgers, the finger will be pointed at him because of past defeats he has managed in the Champions League at Celtic.
A one-off result like this, although stings, can be excused, but, after experiencing similarly heavy defeats against the likes of Barcelona and PSG, fans and pundits are going to ask questions of the Celtic boss.
All Rodgers can do now is pick his players up for Ross County on Sunday and hope to ease the Champions League pain with a win in Dingwall.
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