Celtic will back manager Ronny Deila, says Neil Lennon
Thursday 27 August 2015 12:01, UK
Bolton manager Neil Lennon expects Celtic boss Ronny Deila to receive the backing of the club - despite being knocked out of the Champions League at the qualifying stage for the second year running.
Celtic lost 4-3 on aggregate to Malmo of Sweden, which puts them into the Europa League again this season.
Lennon was in charge at Celtic for four years from 2010-2014, and thinks the Scottish Premiership champions can do well in the their Europa League campaign.
"I've been through it myself in my first year. It is a bitter pill to swallow," said Lennon. "But Ronny's a young manager. He will get the backing of the board, there's no question of that.
"He needs to pick the club up and I think he will do that, but like I said it's never easy qualifying."
"These are the most important games of the season and they come four or five games into your season, whereas Malmo are three quarters of the way through theirs, so in terms of match fitness they always have a slight advantage.
"Now they've got a Europa League campaign where I think they can maybe do something and make a contribution towards that," said Lennon.
"It'll take a couple of days for everyone up there to get over it, it'll be sore for a while, but I think they're good enough to do really well in the Europa League."
