Christopher Jullien

Celtic star Christopher Jullien has urged Peter Lawwell to keep the faith with Neil Lennon and insists the Celtic players are all backing the boss to save the season.

The Hoops boss is under severe pressure after another shocker against Sparta Prague as his side tumbled out of the Europa League with two games to go.


Celtic are stuck in a nightmare run of just two wins in NINE games – with 21 goals shipped.

The champions have slumped 11 points behind Rangers in the Premiership and have been pummelled 8-2 on aggregate by bang average Sparta Prague.


Hoops fans have turned up the heat on the boss but Jullien said: “I have no worries about the manager.

“It was a bad game but we still have belief in each other and in the coaching staff. I believe in him – 100 per
cent. He’s a great coach. He has done great work before and he will do it again.

“I know there’s not been the results but the manager is doing a great job, we just have to erase these mistakes and work for each other.

I believe if we do that we can get back to the way we were. It was a bad night but there are some big matches ahead and a lot to play for.



The manager has 100 per cent support from the players.”

Lennon admits Celtic’s confidence has cracked but Jullien insists there will be crisis talks to thrash out the alarming form.

The defender – who returned last night after two months out injured – said: “We are just going to speak to each other and see what is wrong. We have the same players as last year and the same staff, they are still doing a great job.

Mentally we might have had a slump or something like that but we just have to trust and believe in each other to get back to what we were doing last year.

“We were great. We wanted to win every game, we still want it, but there’s just something missing.

“I think all the team are going to learn and work hard in training to get back to what we believe to be the great team we were, and are going to be.

“We still have four trophies to play for. We have to focus, it’s about having a great mentality to win.”



Jullien admitted Celtic were their own worst enemies in Prague. Odsonne Edouard had them ahead early but more defensive calamities let Sparta surge ahead before two late goals on the counter topped a miserable night.

Jullien said: “We gifted them their goals. It was really disappointing.

“We had a lot of energy in the second half and were confident about what we were doing.

“We felt we needed just one moment to get back into the game.”

Edouard notched his first Celtic goal in three months but passed up a glorious chance to make it 2-2 before they suffered further punishment.

Jullien added: “You have to be good in both boxes. In that moment he missed the chance but we always trust him to do his job. He scores great goals and this is just something that happened.

“Odsonne knows that we are always going to trust in him because he has the talent and capacity to do something beautiful.

“The point that was really bad was conceding the third goal, that killed us.

 

It enrages me more they keep wheeling out players so say how wonderful they are all feeling as a “team”

Cut the * and just call a spade a spade.

 

* sake

Between this and the interview on the Lennon thread. He’s going absolutely nowhere

 

What else are the players supposed to do but back the manager? Probably told to do it by Lawwell.

 

Can be a good player for us but as I have said many of times he needs to cut out the lying on the deck when their is hee-haw wrong with him. He’s a big unit of a guy and it doesn’t help him or the team, especially when we are losing to Ross County at home! Wasting time we will never get back. Man up ffs!!

 

CJ: We know we have to ask questions of ourselves because at the end of the day we are on the field and we’re not accepting these kind of defeats.”

CJ: “We always want to win. The mentality is still the same. We are still good, working together and unified. We are working hard to get back to winning ways.”

CJ: “We just keep trusting ourselves. We know we are not in a good place right now. It’s going to correct by working hard, together and finding more solutions.

CJ: “The dressing room is unified like never before. We are strong together and the players are behind the staff, and the staff are behind us. We are going to do everything to fix the results.

 

Same pish before every game atm. Nothing on Julien, just scripted pish.

 

I thought he talked well for what its worth

 

Poor * not been there for the majority of the pish.

 

The mentality might still be there! It could be a mixture of their lack of confidence and the pandemic, this has amplified the weaknesses that have always been there.

 

Julien seems soft as *. IMHO (of course!).

 

....... But hes superman he does the big scream

 

Big sexy darlings gonna win us the 10.

 

I think what's at stake this season and the Covid restrictions are causing a more extreme reaction than would usually be the case TBH. At least, I hope so. If there wasn't 10iar going down the drain and no chance to show frustration at games due to there being no fans, I would probably say that the reaction was a bit extreme.

At the end of the day, we have genuine rivals again now and we can't win the league every year and we will have bad patches. An extreme bad patch like this would definitely have a fair bit of unrest going; but I doubt we'd have seen the level of abuse towards Lenny.

The board should have "mutually agreed" the departure of Lenny and brought in a high-level manager after the first Prague game and there were always going to be a lot of fans who would say "told you so" the moment Lenny screwed up; but I honestly think a fair few of us are going to regret some of the things that have been said about Lenny after this is all over and they look back.

For a Frenchman like Julien, who doesn't get what's at stake and doesn't know how much we have declined, this must seem mental.

 

I wouldn't mind if it was just one or two games however, we have been poor since the start of the season and I am now getting fed up with the club rolling out players/ex players etc. backing NL

 

We have genuine rivals now because of a series of our own mistakes and I think that's were all the anger comes from which is now directed mostly at Lennon and I hope will turn towards the board because, at the end, they are responsible for our strategic planning. The permanent appointement of Lenny was shortsighted. What a club of our size needs is a professional structure which is in place regardless of who's in power. That's what RB Leipzig did when they appointed Ralf Rangnick and that's the reason why they are so successful. Their strategy wasn't like Chelsea's or City's just to spend a lot of money. They invested a smaller amount more wisely in talents.

This is something most fans are aware of and I think the reason why the reaction to having a genuine rival back is so intense. *me how it annoys me that it's mostly because of our luck of professionalism that they're back. If it would be because they worked they way back I could somehow accept it. But not if it's because our own failings.

 

Their Europa League results suggest that they would be genuine rivals even if we were getting it right, mate. They just are rivals now. We have to deal with that. Plainly, so far we aren't dealing with it very well.

 

Why is Bitton getting a game before big CJ?
Surely CJ and Ajer need to play together as much as possible, in an effort to build up an understanding, especially in a dead rubber.