NEIL Lennon admitted last night he is weighing up whether to add another striker to Celtic’s ranks during January – after Vakoun Bayo picked up a training-ground knock to leave Odsonne Edouard as the only fully-fit and recognised striker at the club for tonight’s meeting with St Mirren.
The Ivorian forward was undergoing a scan last night after picking up a knee problem in training at Lennoxtown. With Leigh Griffiths still short of full fitness, that leaves the club reliant on their £9m Frenchman with the games set to come thick and fast for the remainder of the year.
“It [the striking department] may be an area we’ll look at,” said Lennon. “But there’s no set targets, as yet. We need to get Griffiths back in and around it to give us more depth and support. The sooner he gets fit, the better. But you get anxiety [around Edouard] because he is a quality player and you don’t want to lose him at any time.
“If that was the case, hopefully Bayo, Griffiths and couple of others could slot in there,” he added. “But Bayo took a knock on his knee on Monday and it’s a bit swollen, so it’s being checked out.”
On the plus side, Lennon welcomes Olivier Ntcham and suspended Ryan Christie back into the mix for St Mirren with Mikey Johnston and Griffiths himself set to step up their training in the next few days.
Having racked up a four-goal first-half lead at Pittodrie on Sunday, there will be an expectation amongst Celtic supporters that the club will rack up a barrowload of goals but Lennon was wary last night.
“We have to focus solely on beating St Mirren,” he said. “Supporters will go there with expectations of a foregone conclusion. We can’t think like that. These are the type of games that can be dangerous especially when your form is going so well.”
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