Celtic Diary Saturday August 24

Manager Neil Lennon has signed a new one year rolling contract, and wishes to stress that he hasn’t had a pay rise. While the rest of us scratch our heads and wonder why he didn’t ask victor wanyamas agent to do his negotiations for him, the manager spoke candidly, and hardly glanced nervously to the side of him at all.

‘There is no extra remuneration,’

‘It is not, unfortunately, a bumper deal that I have signed.

‘It is the same contract. There were just some legal stipulations that I wanted tweaked a little bit. I signed it on Friday morning, so I am happy to proceed.

‘I am well paid  here. The club have looked after me very well from the day I walked in as a player

‘I have a good contract and good backing. I will always feel that I owe people something, whether it is the people who employ me, the supporters, or the players I bring in.

‘It is just the way I am. I will always feel that I have a responsibility to someone.

‘I won’t ever feel that I have done it all and I don’t need to give anything back. I always want to give.

‘That is why the last few days have been difficult after what happened in Kazakhstan.

‘That was hard to take and I want nothing more than to succeed.’

He did admit, however, that Peter Lawwell had agreed to stop taking his dinner money off him on the way to training. Perhaps thats what he meant by legal stipulations.

Lennons not daft, so whatever they were, he feels they are more important than a rise.

In fairness, its kind of refreshing to see someone who isn’t in it for the money these days, but none of us would have had any problem with him getting a pay rise, or a new bonus. When he referred to  the ‘legal stipulations’ contained within his previous agreement, which is interesting. Perhaps he has secured himself a better pay off, maybe he has got someone from the club to sign it as well, or maybe its the bit about dinner money. Whatever, as long as he is happy, which he says he is.

He wants to concentrate on the football;

The priority for me is the football side of things,’ he insisted.

‘I have a huge challenge now — can I take this team into the Champions League without three of the more important players  from years gone by? That is a huge challenge in itself.’

Players from years gone by ? They only left last month. Bloody drama queen.

Celtic face Inverness today, and the Highland side have had a great start to the season. Three wins in three, versus Celtics two out of two. something has to give, and it should be a cracker.

Its 6am just now in Stoke, and I’m off to Glasgow as soon as I finish this. So, if I do the team news now, I can read it when i get to the Gallowgate.

Georgios Samaras has a toe injury, Kris commons has hurt his groin, Anthony Stokes has a calf problem and James forrest has sciatica. Derk Boerrigter has fitted in well at Celtic, as he remains on the sidelines, but its Forrest who is worrying Lennon the most. Which is no fucking surprise.

‘People are saying James has lost a yard, but he hasn’t,’ Lennon insisted. ‘It is because of his sciatica problem. He is dragging his right leg a little bit.

‘He will see a neurologist to find out if we can get to the bottom of it. It’s very frustrating for him and for us because he is a huge asset.’

Dragging his leg ? This lass just won a silver medal at the ski-ing, and she’s only got one leg, so i’ve no sympathy for him.

Actually, she doesn’t look like that anymore, but thats a better picture. Here she is in a pose that made her famous, in her former job collecting and storing fluid from old mens bodies.

Sorry, I digress…

So Lennon has a few selection problems up front, but at least it will give us a chance to do the A. Balde T. Watt forward line joke, and heres a picture

Which may have disappointed a few of you, but thats what popped up after a fairly risky google search.

Celtic could start with Forster, Matthews Lustig Mulgrew Izzaguerre  Brown , Ledley,  Kayal, Rogic Balde , Watt.

But probably won’t. I would play that back four, with Lustig shifted central, and get them ready for Wednesday, when theres a big game on, where Celtic cannot afford to concede.

Today, if Celtic click then a 5-0 win would be my prediction. Otherwise, and more likely, a disappointing 1-1 is on the cards.

The ground is just about 250 miles from my house, and if I keep talking like this I’l be going back to bed in a minute.

Elsewhere in Scotland, last seasons runners up Motherwell have struggled thus far, embarassing themselves at home and inEurope. Manager Stuart McCall, bizarrely also involved at international level with Scotland, says he needs more width.

Well, if he needs advice on that front, he could always ring his pal.

He knows all about width.

Elsewhere, you probably noticed that Bale is leaving -its all over the news- presumably just wanting to try something new to avoid going stale.

He’s being replaced by Ben Affleck.

The key, and Shirley Temple, who sung young , gave us mercurial midfielder Ki Seung Yeung yesterday , and today we drift deep, deep into the past, and ask who is this ?

Before I go, a wee bit of breaking news.

Jose Mourinho says he’ll walk if Chelsea don’t win trophies, and Stepehen Hawking says he’ll walk if Rangers do.