Reaction, Recovery, Regeneration

Neil Lennon hails the attitude, performances and victories of his players in game-after-game action

- Tony Connelly

THE performances over the course of last week have been indicative of a Celtic side at their absolute best and Neil Lennon admitted he could not ask for more from his players. Now that the bar has been raised, the manager is looking for consistency as Celtic gear up for another challenging week on all fronts.

Within the space of eight days Celtic scored 10 goals in the league without conceding and defeated a Serie A side in Europe at Paradise. The standards expected of any Celtic side will always be difficult to live up to but Neil Lennon’s team have more than done that over the course of the last three games.

A 6-0 win over Ross County was followed up with a thrilling 2-1 victory over Lazio in the Europa League. Less than 72 hours later the Hoops were back in action as they made the long journey up north to face Aberdeen at Pittodrie where they recorded a 4-0 win.

Neil Lennon was pleased with far more than just the three points his side took back to Glasgow when he looked back on the game.

“I’m delighted with the reaction and the recovery of the players,” he said. “It was a Titanic game on Thursday night and it’s such a short a turnaround, but the players performed fantastically well. Even if we had a free week, that was still a brilliant performance.

“It’s been a brilliant week. We’ve scored 10 goals in the league and had a fantastic win over Lazio. Mentally and physically that game against Lazio was draining for them, but they recovered brilliantly with an outstanding performance.

“To go to Aberdeen and score four goals in the manner in which we played, I couldn’t ask any more of the players and I don’t think the fans could either.