Lennon Explains Decision To Sideline £7m Man For Key Celtic Game

Lennon Explains Decision To Sideline £7m Man For Key Celtic Game

Celtic manager Neil Lennon has opened up on why Christopher Jullien did not feature in the infamous 4-3 defeat to Cluj back in August.

The Frenchman has signed from Toulouse for £7m a month earlier, but he was not selected for the crucial second leg of the Champions League third qualifying round tie. Asked if he regretted the decision looking back on it, the Hoops boss said he didn’t as he believed the Frenchman wasn’t ready:

“If we had thrown Christopher into that game it might have killed him or dented his confidence if it hadn’t gone well for him. You make those decisions as a manager and I don’t regret it one bit. We scored three goals and should have gone through but we shot ourselves in the foot.”

Jullien has subsequently become a first-team regular for Celtic and will almost certainly be in the starting eleven when Celtic line up against Cluj once again, this time in the Europa League group stages.

In terms of other team news ahead of Thursday’s game, Moritz Bauer is a doubt after picking up an ankle knock in the 1-1 draw against Hibernian, but Mikey Johnston and Nir Bitton have both returned to training. Jozo Simunovic (knee) and Leigh Griffiths (thigh) are still unavailable.

David Tully

David Tully

David has worked as a football reporter for the last fifteen years. Having started as an intern at Snack Media, he then went on to become a freelancer, working on various different sites. At the start of 2023, he took up his current role as content writer for National World's Football News Network.