Celtic and Lennon look to source from outside Scotland

If it’s good enough for the SFA

It was clear that the press conference for Neil Lennon today was going to feature a lot of question based upon the refereeing crisis but the young manager handled the situation well. Any slip of the tongue or vague comment would have been pounced upon but Lennon again showed a maturity beyond the expectations of a manager in his first full season with any club, let alone one the magnitude of Celtic.

When asked if it had been a stressful week with the ref situation, Lennon remarked that he had been down south scouting players. Well, if the SFA can go outside of the countries borders to bring in refs, there can be few complaints when managers do the same for new players!

Thankfully the Celtic v Inverness Caley match goes ahead on Saturday but whether both managers are saying that at the end of the game is a different matter.

Avoiding defeat will see Inverness Caley Thistle extend their unbeaten away league record beyond a year and they will have few fears at travelling to Glasgow. Tremendous performances and positive results at Ibrox and Tannadice this season indicates that Caley can match up to the best teams in the SPL.

That said, most will expect Celtic to win and the club needs to bounce back from last weeks draw at home to Dundee United.

James Forrest is still unavailable for Celtic but Anthony Stokes is likely to be back in the squad and possibly the first team line-up. Celtic demolished Inverness Caley in the League Cup this season but these games can often be misleading.

It also wouldn’t be the first time Celtic thumped a team only to stumble to them later. Any Caley fans fearful of a repeat of that rainsoaked night need only look back to season 2008/09 when Celtic put 7 past St Mirren but then lost 1-0 to the Paisley side a week later. Celtic have hardly been firing on all cylinders since putting 9 past Aberdeen so Caley will definitely think they have every chance of continuing their unbeaten away run.

With all eyes on the foreign officials, both managers have a big need for the positive result for their team in the East-End of Glasgow tomorrow.