Celtic: Neil Lennon ‘can’t defend’ his players after draw at Hibs

Celtic’s ‘lazy’ defending angers Lennon

Celtic manager Neil Lennon questioned his players’ hunger and said he “can’t defend” them after the 2-2 Scottish Premiership draw with Hibernian.

Odsonne Edouard and Diego Laxalt netted late on to scramble an away point.

But Celtic have won two of eight games in all competitions and will be 11 points behind leaders Rangers, albeit having played two matches fewer, if the Ibrox side defeat Aberdeen on Sunday.

“I don’t know if they’ve lost a bit of hunger,” said Lennon.

“We need to get that back and quickly. I saw plenty of it in the last 20 minutes but we gave ourselves too much to do to win the game.

“The pressure will pile up if we keep getting results like that. If there’s any criticism of the performance today, I can’t defend it. We’ll all have to accept it.”

Lennon was furious with his side’s defensive lapses, blaming a “brain-freeze” for falling 2-0 behind within seven second-half minutes.

Scott Brown’s needless barge on Martin Boyle conceded a penalty, which Jamie Murphy converted after Scott Bain saved from Kevin Nisbet.

And Nisbet added a second after capitalising on static Celtic defending.

“It was a really poor decision from Scott, I don’t know where that came from,” said Lennon. “And then an awful second goal. It was just lazy – a free header and then not tracking the run.

“We have to be far more on point with our defending and doing the nuts and bolts of the game well.

“The players have to look at that and ask why we can’t put that together for 90 minutes rather than save it for 20 minutes. It’s a mindset thing more than anything else.”