Lennon believes Celtic need competition from somewhere to give them back their ‘edge’
Neil Lennon reckons Celtic DO need Rangers a little more than fans are willing to admit – suggesting their rivals’ plight may be part of why the Hoops have lost their ‘edge’ in recent weeks.
But while that claim won’t prove popular at face value, it does back up something Hoops fans have been saying for months about their lack of competition.
The Premiership title race, if you can call it that, has been over virtually since the turn of the year, and having it wrapped up so early means Celtic’s season has essentially been over since they exited the Champions League at the hands of Bayern Munich.
The Scottish Cup is their only truly live competition and the league chasm has arguably led to some eyes coming off the ball.
Brendan Rodgers, for one, slammed some stars for getting too ‘comfortable’ after the win over St Johnstone.
And Lennon’s seen this particular story before – in its extreme form.
He told SNN Sports: “I left in 2014 because we were winning the league by a long, long way. When Ronny Deila came in after me, they actually closed part of the stadium, the top tier, because there were no fans.
“For all the bravado at times and ‘we don’t need Rangers’, you probably do. You need that edge.
A lot of fans will say ‘no’, but I always think it is good to have real competition. In my day, as a player, we lost two leagues on the last day of the season and won the other three under Martin O’Neill by a landslide.
“The beauty of that was that, if Rangers kicked off at 12.30pm and won, we knew we had to win at 3.00pm. You are on edge all the time.
Currently, Celtic are so far ahead that they are lacking that edge in the league. Fans will tell you that they are going to win the league and they don’t care, but, sometimes, for the players and the coaches, it is good to have that tightness between them.
The soundbite won’t be a popular one with fans, but the prevailing theory among punters has long been that a lack of domestic competition, primarily due to Rangers’ own weakness, hasn’t been good for them, or for the Scottish game at large.
But when Lennon was asked if he’d swap their current dominance to have Rangers back at their level, he quickly clarified: “To have a strong competitive Rangers? Maybe not so strong…”
The one-horse race also doesn’t especially help the perception of Scottish football from outside.
Former Tottenham and Manchester United striker Teddy Sheringham, speculating wildly over the future of Brendan Rodgers, recently told casinoapps.com: “Rangers are going well in Europe, but they haven’t offered any kind of challenge for the Scottish title this season. Aberdeen haven’t been great recently. He (Rodgers) doesn’t really have to do that much up there to win the league does he?
Celtic just sweep everything up, and would they be doing that without Brendan? You would have to look at the competition and say that they probably would.“And again, given the challenge, a treble doesn’t mean as much as it should does it? We want to see top teams competing up there in Scotland. We want to see a strong Rangers, and they’re in a terrible state when it comes to domestic football.
