CHRIS SUTTON insists Celtic need another Neil Lennon if they hope to turn things around.
The champions’ middle-of-the-park operators were swamped in Linz and Govan as they collapsed under a deluge of goals to exit the Champions League and the Premier Sports League Cup.
The defence wasn’t protected by Callum McGregor, Benjamin Nygren and Mika Baur – and latterly Reo Hatate and Luke McCowan – as LASK came back from 4-0 down with an hour to go to win 5-1 and go through 5-4 on aggregate in Europe’s elite competition.
On Sunday at Ibrox, there was similar feeble resistance when Martin O’Neill once again started with McGregor, Nygren and Baur and Derek McInnes’ outfit powered their way to a 3-0 triumph in an encounter they bossed from start to finish.
IT TAKES TWO…Chris Sutton and Neil Lennon celebrate another Celtic triumph.
Former goal hero Sutton said: “Celtic’s midfield is lightweight, it is a midfield full of five-a-side players, they can’t cover the ground and they were bullied.
“I thought Celtic handed Rangers the initiative from the start and this is a Rangers team who, let’s get it right, have struggled this season.
“Fair play to Derek McInnes for changing things up. He probably had a fair idea that the Celtic midfield were there for the bullying. Things won’t change.
“Don’t take my word. You’ve got the Celtic manager who turned around after they sold Arne Engels and said: ‘Well, we need to replace a player with that profile, with the same dynamics.”
“Have Celtic done that? They were found out in that department. Then you think: ‘Well what’s going to change from now to the weekend? Do Celtic have a player who can go in there and stiffen that midfield up?”
Sutton, speaking to the Daily Record Podcast, continued: “After we’d beaten Rangers 6-2 in 2000, we went to Ibrox in November, we lost 5-1.
“A player who was absent, who wasn’t at the club that particular day, was Neil Lennon.
DECISION TIME…Martin O’Neill has problems to solve.
“Celtic then went and signed Neil Lennon to stiffen up that midfield.
“That’s a robust number six player and we went on to win the league comfortably from there. But Celtic should have done that business.
“This is once again a case of Celtic playing catch-up when they shouldn’t. And who’s to blame for that?”
The one-time England international forward added: “It’s an issue, that midfield three for Celtic. You need to have robust physicality in the middle of the park.
“Celtic don’t have that.”
In the summer window, the Hoops sold Engels to West Ham for £22million and Hatate to Burnley for £6.5million.
O’Neill brought in midfield recruits in Baur, £6.8million from SC Paderborn, Joel van den Berg, £3.5million from Feyenoord, and Oliver Sorensen, on loan from Parma.
They also have Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and McCowan on the periphery.
Unfortunately, there is not a ball-winner in the mould of former hero Lennon among them.
O’Neill will now have to wait until the January window opens to buy a such a player.
In the meantime, the veteran team chief will have to come up with a strategy that prevents the Celtic midfield being overrun by the opposition.
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