Chris Sutton last night branded Celtic boss Neil Lennon 'delusional' before admitting that the pressure is mounting on his old teammate.
The Hoops suffered a crushing defeat to Sparta Prague in the Europa Legaue, which sent the Glasgow outfit tumbling out the competition.
A Green Brigade protest called for Lennon to be sacked this week and after images appeared of the banner outside Parkhead, Sutton hit out at the fan group.
But following last night's display, the Hoops hero believes his former teammate is in trouble.
He told BT Sport: "If I'm honest I thought that Sparta Prague were the better team throughout the game.
"This is a Sparta team who have lost four out of the last five games, this is a team Celtic should be beating.
"They have been humiliated over two legs. 8-2 was the score over two games.
"Neil Lennon now is under severe pressure. This is a team who have conceded 21 goals in the last nine games. They haven't stepped up in the big games.
"They look disjointed, disorganised and, he's my mate, but he's in big trouble. I can't defend that - it was a hopeless, hopeless performance.
"I know that the board have backed him, but they have a decision to make. The last time a (Celtic) manager was on this bad a run was Tony Mowbray. Ronny Deila failed in Europe too.
"This isn't the Champions League though, this is the Europa League and for Celtic to be out after four games isn't good enough.
"This time last year Celtic beat Lazio and they qualified after four games. They've regressed and he's in trouble.
"I'm not sure it solves the problems if he does go. It's a huge decision for the board to make. He's won nine major trophies as Celtic manager. Do they trust him?
"I don't know what's been going on behind the scenes. Whether Peter Lawwell has seen enough with what's going on in the training ground to trust him.
"The fact of the matter is the results have not been good enough and it's been all season. It's been on Neil Lennon's watch.
"You can't get knocked out the Europa League after four games. It happened to Ronny Deila and I don't know where Neil goes from here.
"He needs a reaction. But I watched his whole interview (after the match) and some of the stuff he was saying, in my opinion, was delusional - and he's my mate!
"He got a lot wrong about tonight. I can't stick up for him on the evidence of what we've seen this season."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel