John Barnes reckons Celtic boss Neil Lennon is RIGHT to keep wantaway player rows and any unrest in-house.

The Hoops are well off the pace set by Rangers who sit 15 points clear at the summit. Neil Lennon's men have lost three and drawn seven in the title race while the Light Blues are yet to suffer defeat.

Barnes puts that down to the possibility of Celtic's top stars taking their foot off the gas in the 10 in a row quest and not giving their all when it matters, as well as on the training pitch.

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The former Celts manager also believes there could be a harmony issue within the dressing room which is finding its way out onto the grass on match day. 

Lennon has previously revealed some of his stars fancy a move out of the club and let rip last year after they crashed out of the Champions League qualifiers to Ferencvaros. And he questioned some of their attitudes.

And Barnes says players STILL have to work harder after a dismal Premiership campaign. "If you don’t know what’s going on at Celtic how will the players learn from their mistakes," Barnes told BonusCodeBets

"If players have been disrespectful to the manager, not showing up for training, we just don’t know. Obviously, it's been a tough season for them, maybe they need to make more effort in training and work harder as a team. The title race is pretty much over, they’re out of the Champions League, out of the Europa League, they need to learn to be stronger. 

"It’s hard to say what they can learn from this season as we don’t know what the problems are and I don’t think the problems are the on-field issues, because they win most of their matches anyway. But, if you’re playing teams like Rangers and other top sides, if things aren’t right, you will lose matches. It’s not always to do with having great players, but with harmony togetherness and belief, the quality will come through.  

"It's an easy thing to say but it's hard to do if things aren't going well."

We told earlier this week how Lennon revealed there were 'mitigating circumstances' for the club's dramatic downturn in form this term. But the Northern Irishman claimed he could not divulge any of the issues in public.

And Barnes tipped his cap to the Celtic manager, saying the experienced Lennon was doing the right thing keeping it in-house. "At a club, if there is any unrest or upheaval as we’ve seen at Celtic this season, as a manager you do not want it to get out, as it can cause even more problems," the Liverpool icon added. "If you look at social media and the reactionary world we are in, everybody is so involved with everything.   

"You don’t want to have messages out there that players are unhappy, and people fighting in training, standoffs with the board etc, it’s not good to bring all this to the surface. Neil Lennon is doing his best to protect the reputation of the club.  

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"Unfortunately for him, what will then happen is because he’s not making an excuse, it’s then his fault as a manager, and people will go for him. Managers must be very careful that they protect themselves, but also the club and the players. If most managers were to come out and tell the truth about what goes on in clubs, it would be very unstable and not be good for success. 

"Neil Lennon has to protect himself or everybody's going to be blaming him without knowing the story of what's actually going on in training Monday to Friday, so it's a bit of a tell-tale sign of the club’s current affairs that he’s saying ‘mitigating circumstances’ which he can't discuss. It’s not always just down to the manager."