Will Lennon’s comments on fatigue make him think again about rotation in his Celtic team?

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Neil Lennon thinks fatigue could have played a factor in Sunday’s Celtic defeat to Livingston, The Daily Record report.

The Hoops boss made just one change from the team that faced off against Cluj the previous Thursday.

High energy performers such as Ryan Christie and Odsonne Edouard were selected despite looking notably knackered towards the end of the victory over the Romanian champions.

Having also been reduced to ten men against Livi, it lead to circumstances that made it all a bit difficult for Celtic to compete against the physical home side.

Lennon said of the situtation, as quoted by The Daily Record: “It’s possibly down to fatigue. They are human beings and they put a lot into the game on Thursday.

“Then you need to play a long time with 10 men, so that could have been a factor.

“I hoped the subs would help us, but they didn’t really impact the game as we would have liked. I didn’t really think about making more changes. We put a strong team out.”

A change in approach?

Lennon has a quality squad to choose from and the fact he isn’t quite utilising it to the best of his ability right now is a small concern moving forward.

Even when you look at some of the players we had on the bench yesterday, we had enough quality to come into the team. What about playing Olivier Ntcham or Scott Sinclair? Both are experienced trophy winners at the club.

If we’re going to put so much effort into Europa League matches, as we should, then the manager needs to recognise that fatigue alone can seriously knock us off our game against so-called lesser opponents.

You can see in some why he’s named such a strong team for the Livingston clash. We should have won the match. However, hopefully it’s a lesson learned for Lennon and his coaching staff.

All eyes will be on our next post-European performance against Aberdeen at Pittodrie.