A sign of the times

Neil Lennon confirmed that some of the players who won the Clydesdale Bank Premier League last season, and taken the club into the group stage of this season's Champions League, would be offered better deals. The club has money to spend after securing close to £20m by qualifying for the group stage and another £6m from Ki Sung-Yeung's sale.

Hooper joined Celtic from Scunthorpe for £2.4m in July, 2012, while Wanyama cost only £1m from the Belgian club Beerschot last summer. "There are three or four we will be looking to give new, improved contracts to, to reward them for their efforts," said Lennon. "Gary and Victor come into that category. We are already talking to Thomas Rogne. It's ongoing with him, he has a year left on his contract and he is a player who has done great for me. There are a couple of other ones who deserve it."

Lennon said he was satisfied not only with his existing players and also those who have yet to kick a ball for him. Miku Fedor, Efe Ambrose, Lubos Kamenar and Lassad Nouioui all joined over the past five days to complete the squad Celtic will take into the Champions League. Although none of them arrived as big names, and Celtic were unsuccessful in an attempt to land the Italian legend Alessandro del Piero, Lennon declared himself pleased with them. "It's as good as we could have got. The areas I wanted to improve were centre-half and centre-forward and I think we've done that. It has looked as though Gary [Hooper] was getting a bit isolated at times. With 'Stokesy' [Anthony Stokes] not being there he's had to play in a different position at times. He was having to look after Tony Watt in some games and at other times, in the European games, he was playing up front on his own when he prefers to play with a partner. With Miku and Lassad coming in he has players to complement him."

Celtic signed Lassad as a free agent and the club is not implicated in a legal row which may lead to the player and an agent who purported to represent him being sued by the Spanish club Levante, who believed he had signed for them. Lennon dealt with another agent and was unconcerned by the matter, saying it did not arise in a long chat he had with Lassad on Monday.

"Whether another agent got involved and was telling Levante one thing and telling the player another, I don't know. We will support the boy either way. I think the agent has caused the problems here. A lot of agents get involved at the last minute and muddy the water. The agent named is one I've never heard of and certainly wasn't involved in any of our dealings with Lassad."

The window which closed on Friday was the fifth since Lennon took over Celtic. The current squad has only four survivors from the group he inherited from Tony Mowbray. "There was a malaise going through the club at the time that we had to cut out and rectify. We bought young, hungry players which is probably the way forward. You look over your shoulder at the money being spent in England and some of it is good. Some of it I'm not too sure about. I think clubs pay over the odds for players these days and there might be others out there you can get better value for."

Celtic's policy has been to buy relatively unknown players from overseas to develop them, with a view to selling them for considerable profit. Hooper, Wanyama, Ki, Emilio Izagurre, Biram Kayal all grew in status after coming to Parkhead. "I'm really happy with the squad now. It's been about trying to progress it as we've gone along and the strategy has been to find young players and develop them, and eventually there is a resale value. It took me a little while to get my head around that because I was thinking we could do with a bit more experience in the squad, but to be fair to these players they have done brilliantly for me and exceeded my expectations so far."

Celtic had become much more attractive to players by returning to the Champions League group, he said. "Without Rangers being here the carrot is that you come to Celtic to play Champions League football. They are going to do that and are going to experience something that will be very, very special, something that other clubs in the Premiership can't give them. Something like 80% of the clubs down there can't give them Champions League football and we have been able to provide that."

Lennon spoke at Parkhead to publicise the first leg of a "Pedal for Petrov" cycle challenge in which Aston Villa club masseurs Alex Butler and Andy Smith will attempt to raise £250,000 for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research by cycling up to 80 miles a day over five days. The Villa captain and former Celtic player, Stiliyan Petrov, 33, was diagnosed with leukaemia in March.

"The guys invited me to do a leg of the challenge, which I will think about over the weekend," said Lennon. "It is great what the two boys are doing."