Lennon heaps praise on Celtic players

Manager Neil Lennon insists his players deserve the credit for transforming Celtic's season rather than himself.

Victory over Hearts would see the Hoops move four points clear of rivals Rangers at the top of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League.

The Jambos were the last team to inflict defeat on Celtic in the SPL - a 2-0 loss at Tynecastle on October 2 - during what was a difficult period for the Parkhead side.

They were 15 points adrift in the title race at one stage, but could now put themselves firmly in the driving seat with the right result in Edinburgh.

Lennon said: "I'm not taking the credit. The credit goes to the players. I'm only as good as my players.

"We worked hard with them. There are different personalities in there but they are a very good group.

"Some of them were short of confidence, some of them were short of form. That's football at times.

"We didn't do anything extra in training. We just went over clips of games where we could improve. What we have started to do is cut out the individual mistakes. If they do make mistakes, there is belief there that they can turn it around very quickly in games.

"That's credit to them, not to me."

Lennon admits that spell earlier in the campaign was the most testing of his managerial career.

He said: "Absolutely. In a perverse sort of way, I enjoyed it. It was a challenge for myself. You'd go home every night and think about whether we change our training methods. Do we change our approach to games, the psychology of the game?

"Then you think back to last season and winning 92 points and going to two cup finals - there's not a lot wrong. It's just getting to the players and making them do the right things at the right time more often and thankfully they started to do that."

On Celtic's title hopes, the Hoops boss added: "There is a possibility that we could go unbeaten in the league but it doesn't guarantee that we will win it.

"We could have seven wins and seven draws and that might not be enough in the next 14 games. We are not looking too far ahead."