Celtic boss Neil Lennon has not taken Kris Boyd’s recent comments about Scottish football kindly and has labelled them as ‘idiotic’.
Former Rangers striker, Kris Boyd, caused some controversy recently regarding his comments about Scottish football. Boyd told Sky Sports last week that he did not believe that there were any truly great players currently plying their trade in Scotland at the moment. Not even at Celtic or Rangers!
Obviously, the Scottish football fans were outraged by the comments and rightfully so. If that was truly the case then clubs from all over the world would not be willing to pay top money every season and ship out players from the Premiership.
Neil Lennon certainly did not agree with Boyd’s view. As Celtic manager, Lennon has some of the best players in Scotland at his disposal. And after seeing what these players are capable week in, week out, the manager seemed to have no doubt in his mind about their quality. He even went as far as to brand the former Rangers star’s comments as ‘idiotic’.
As reported by The Scottish Sun, when asked whether he disagreed with Boyd’s comments, the Celtic boss said:
"“Yeah, totally. It depends how you define great. If he is comparing everyone to Messi and Ronaldo then . . .“But Virgil Van Dijk played in Scotland not so long ago.“Do we have a Kevin De Bruyne or an Eden Hazard? Maybe not. But did we ever have great players at that level? Maybe Henrik Larsson.“But the way the game is changing you have to go and spend £30million to bring in these players now.“We had Van Dijk, and can we go and create more great players along the way? Of course we can. I think it’s an idiotic statement to make.“Give me £50m and I’ll bring in a load of players here and we’ll see what we can do with them.“But we just don’t have that financial back-up English teams have. We have to create our own monsters again.“John McGinn could potentially go on to be a great player. Callum McGregor is a great player.“But how do you compare them? If you put them in the Premier League would they thrive in it? No question.”"
Lennon certainly raises some great points. John McGinn was playing in Scotland just a couple of years ago and how he has done moving to Aston Villa is known to most football fans by now. The former Hibernian midfielder is currently rated at £50 million and linked with the likes of Manchester United.
And there is no doubt in anyone’s mind on whether players like Callum McGregor, Odsonne Edouard, James Forrest and Ryan Christie could cut it in the top leagues of Europe. That is the reason they are linked with moves away from the club every transfer window. Scottish football don’t have a problem with top players, they just have a problem of keeping them there for any considerable length of time.