Celtic Diary Saturday December 21

Neil Lennon has admitted that he may sell Joe Ledley and Georgios Samaras next month if their new contracts remain unsigned. There are stories that both have been offered less money than they are on now, which may explain the delay in signing.

So thats how the club will recover the hundred quid they knocked off season books.

Lennon was asked if he would sell them rather than let them run their contract down;

“The honest answer would be, realistically, yes. The contracts are up in the summer.

“We are getting to the point where there will be a lot of speculation about both players but we have made it clear that we are willing to speak to them and we have spoken to Joe already but we have had nothing back.

“(They are) Two players that we don’t want to go but we can’t force them to stay although we are doing everything we can at the minute to do that. ( Except offering them more money. Or, if rumours are true, even the same money )

“But we have had no indication of what the players want to do.

“The ball is very much in their court at the minute.

“We are planning for next season anyway but obviously we would like some indication of what they are going to do. It is a difficult situation for us and for them.

“I spoke to them both personally a while back but I have had nothing back since.

“I have no idea if there are any offers for them, any interest in them. We have had no phone calls for them.”

Well, not from Hull. Steve Bruce has denied any interest in Samaras. And Barcelona seem to have forgotten all about him.

Lennon  went on to give details about Mikael Lustig, who was advised to undergo an operation on his troublesome hip. Well, both hips, to be honest;

”Lustig had surgery, four months. He had both hips done, so the procedure was a bit more in-depth than first thought.

“We are hoping he will be back March/April time but he had a lot of work done which makes his recent performances even more remarkable.

“His movement was restricted and he was in a lot of pain after games so it needed doing. So hopefully he will come back an even better player which will be brilliant for us.”

Then we can sell him in June.

But, not to worry. Hiroki Yamada has been training with Celtic, and he could be the answer to all our creativity problems. He’s on a work placement or something with Celtic, and Lennon spoke well of him;

“He’s done OK,He will be here for another day or two. So we will run rule over him.

“He seems to have adapted okay.”

When Koki Mizuni arrived at Celtic a few years back, he was touted as the next big thing, but Japanese players take a while to adapt to new cultures. Shunsuke Nakamura had been in Europe for a number of years before joining Celtic, so he made the transition fairly easily. We shouldn’t get our hopes up.

Celtic are home to Hearts today, and Lennon, who sounded like a right barrel of laughs throughout this press conference had a word or two of caution for anyone expecting Celtic to repeat the 7-0 thrashing of a few weeks ago;

” I’m thinking of playing Stokes and Pukki up front, with Boerrigter and Forrest either side of them. ”

Actually he didn’t say that. But if he doesn’t revert back to the diamond midfield then I’m probably going to spend the whole game moaning. Which some would argue would be a lot less moaning than I usually do.

What he actually said was;

“It is very difficult to do that, it is a different competition and we are at home, The onus is on us to take it to Hearts.

“Hearts will have their own agenda in terms of being hard to beat. We have to find a way of breaking them down and I am positive that we will.

“It is not nice when you are on the end of a beating like that as you know and it is important that you get a reaction and (manager) Gary (Locke) will be looking at that.

“I remember we beat St Mirren 7-0 and then lost to them in the cup the following week so no two games are the same.

“So we have to try to maintain our level of performances which has been very good domestically.”

But to be fair, we usually lose in the Cup no matter who we are playing.

Actually, as one reply to the Diary noted yesterday, Pukki will get a hat trick. At least. He scored a proper strikers goal last week, and with Hugh Keevins firmly in the Pukki is shite camp, that means he will score about forty this season.

The Celtic manager has also closed his twitter account, which is a bit of a strange one. Still, at least it removes him from any controversy surrounding todays charity food collection, which neither he nor the club have publicised to date.

Sorry, did I mention charity collection-and did I hear you ask  ” What charity collection would that be ? ”

It deserves as much publicity as possible, and quite honestly when Celtic fans are getting accused of all sorts, its baffling as to why the club haven’t got behind this.

Something else that needs to be out there is this, which shows just how much we are all in it together. From the Daily Mirror, probably the only left wing newspaper left in the country, showing Ian Duncan Smith leaving the debate on foodbanks;

One Conservative MP has described the foodbanks as an example of the Big Society in action. Thats because he’s a tit.

But, enough of politics. Just bob into the shop and grab a couple of tins before you head into the game. Then drop them off at one of the collection points on the map above. These are indicated by stars. Although they are not to scale.

As long as enough of whats needed gets to where its needed then it will be deemed a success. Whether or not the papers notice.

Three members of the Rangers board have lodged complaints to the police after violent threats were made against them.

Sandy Easdale, chairman of Rangers Football Board, his brother James and Brian Stockbridge all received threats on a fans’ website.

One image on the website, which cannot be named, contained a picture of Stockbridge with the caption stating “where is Lee Harvey Oswald when we need him”.

Another posting advocates “torching” McGill’s Buses, which are owned by the Easdale brothers.

Stockbridge, the Rangers financial director, was one of the five board members re-elected at Thursday’s annual general meeting.

Ally McCoist, interestingly, has not demanded to know the names of these people.

Nobody answered yesterdays picture puzzle correctly, which was a bit of a surprise, so forget about that one for now. today, its a mathematics question;

If there are four lines of equal length, how long will Nigella Lawson spend in the bathroom ?

Right, its twenty to six, and time to go. Seee you at the game-or at the food collection . did I mention the food collection ?