Juggling his options . . .

Senior Sports Writer

Saturday 14 July 2012

NEIL LENNON believes the cyclical nature of Scottish football means the stabilisers need to be taken off the youngsters he has at Celtic.

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Ronnie Cully

The financial bump in the road which every club, including the SPL champions, is being required to negotiate is making it tougher than ever to buy in players.

The beneficiaries can be the academy players brought to the club from across Europe when the development programme expanded a few years ago. Now, it is delivering to Lennon a crop of youngsters with the potential to play first-team football, with James Forrest leading the way.

The midfielder who turned 21 last weekend is followed by teenagers such as Filip Twardzik, Dylan McGeouch and Tony Watt. Andre Blackman, signed last summer, is 20."It might go full circle again" explained Lennon. "There was a spell there where it was nigh impossible for a young player at a big club to break through because of the money that was going around."Maybe it's going back to the way it used to be when the younger players might get a chance, particularly at bigger clubs in our situation.""It's a big year for Andre, as it is for McGeouch, Twardzik, and Watt," said the manager as he watched them train here in Germany ahead of tomorrow's game against Stuttgart Kickers. "We want to give them a chance regardless of the financial implications. We've got high hopes for three or four of the younger ones."Forrest, Scotland's Young Player of the Year captained the team against Augsburg on Tuesday."He's a great example and a great incentive for the rest of them to come through," said Lennon."We liked what we saw with Twardzik the other night, and he's been around it now for a year and a half. It's his time now to take that next step. He's earned the respect of the rest of the squad, which is important."Dylan's been around it for a while, Tony not quite as long as the other two, so he might take a bit longer."You get a lot of satisfaction from seeing boys progress, but they have to be good enough to start with, so it's up to them to prove they are."It's important for the club that we do cultivate our own. We need to know the academy is working because we invest a lot of money in it."The other thing is that you enjoy working with younger players. They're good boys, they're willing to listen, and they put into practice what you tell them."I can see already, particularly with Twardzik, signs of making that next step."It's a huge step from under-19 level to first team, particularly at a big club where the expectation level is so much greater. When they come up there's always that dip after the start; you have to recognise when that comes, know what they are going through, but keep them believing it will come again."Lennon has all his players back apart from Ki Sung-Yueng, who is bound for the Olympics with South Korea and also the subject of transfer speculation. Lennon admits he may have to cash in on one of his assets if he is to add to his squad.He said: "Hopefully, these guys will be in contention for Ajax [on Saturday]. We might give them some game time on Tuesday, against FC Aalen, depending on their condition."I had a chat with Peter Lawell and John Park before we left and we identified players in the positions we want. It may be we have to bring money in and, if that's the case, we might need to be patient."INTERVIEW Neil Lennon is ready to promote kids, writes Ronnie Cully in Germany

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Juggling his options . . .

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