Lewis footballer Rachael Johnstone: Celtic gaffer Neil Lennon deserves a chance to turn things around

Celtic women’s footballer Rachael Johnstone has been giving her thoughts on the Celtic board’s decision to retain Neil Lennon as the men’s team gaffer – with his position to be reviewed in January – despite a string of disappointing results.
Celtic women's keeper Rachael Johnstone is backing Neil LennonCeltic women's keeper Rachael Johnstone is backing Neil Lennon
Celtic women's keeper Rachael Johnstone is backing Neil Lennon

A recent run of just two wins in 12 games – which saw Celtic fall 13 points behind Rangers in the Premiership and crash out of the Europa League and Betfred Cup – sparked demonstrations outside Celtic Park by hundreds of enraged fans demanding Lennon be fired if the club’s quest for a record breaking 10th consecutive Scottish title was to have any chance.

Goalkeeper Rachael, 16, who was brought up in Lewis, is a lifelong Celtic fan whose family are all Hoops supporters.

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She told the Stornoway Gazette: “It (the board keeping Lennon in charge) shocked me a wee bit because of the form they’ve been in.

“But I feel they have to give him some chance because he has done a lot with Celtic.

“He’s won trophies with the team and you can see he’s quite ambitious as well.

“Hopefully, he can show why he should still be the manager but we’ll just wait and see.”

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To be fair to Lennon, Celtic have improved in their last two matches with a 3-2 home win over Lille in the Europa League groups, followed by a 2-0 home league win over Kilmarnock.

Meanwhile, Rachael is hoping to recover from recent injury problems to help Celtic women’s pursuit of title glory in SWPL1.

“I think we’re definitely capable of challenging Glasgow City.

“We’ve shown that in our previous games against them.”

She played in a 5-0 pre-season friendly success over Hearts but has been made to wait for her competitive bow.

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Rachael said: “It was quite quiet (against Hearts). I didn’t make any saves but I had a lot of distribution to do.”

In Celtic’s latest SWPL1 game, they won 5-0 at Motherwell on Sunday and are third in the table – two points behind leaders Rangers Women and second-placed Glasgow City – going into the winter break.