Neil Lennon explains why wantaway Celtic stars weren’t allowed to leave

It is no secret that a number of Celtic stars want to leave the club in the near future. The most high-profile exit will be that of Odsonne Edouard, who appears to be coming back in form and is still expected to fetch a handsome transfer fee despite an underwhelming season till now.

Other names who have been linked with Parkhead exits are that of Ryan Christie and Kristoffer Ajer. And after seeing the swift manner in which Jeremie Frimpong left, who knows who else will also head for the exit door in the summer.

This is not a situation that has developed recently though. These players appear to have wanted to leave the club for quite some time now. And seeing how this season has turned out, one has to wonder how much of a part the presence of wantaway stars has played in Celtic’s failures.

Neil Lennon has come out and explained though why they were not allowed to leave the in the summer. Speaking with BBC Sportsound and as cited by 67 Hail Hail, the manager said:

"“If we had done that in a season as significant as this there would’ve been uproar.“We felt continuity was the best way forward. If it had have been a different season, we might have taken another view on it.”"

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Celtic did the right thing but have had to suffer the wrong result

To be very honest, Lennon is completely right here. There would have been outrage if the club had decided to sell someone like Edouard in the summer, when he was viewed as the most important man in the club’s quest for 10IAR. Hindsight is a beautiful thing though and it is not hard to see how the departure would have benefited Celtic this season.

The Frenchman was expected to fetch somewhere in the range of £25-35 million and they could have easily brought in Ivan Toney. The English striker was heavily linked with the Hoops and even wanted a move to Parkhead but the club decided to go after Albian Ajeti instead.

Toney has gone on to score 19 goals and provide 6 assists in just 25 appearances in the Championship while Ajeti has endured a poor campaign.

The same argument could be made about Christie. Him leaving would have brought in a significant transfer fee and also perhaps allowed David Turnbull to feature much more regularly from the very beginning of the campaign.