Premier League news: Celtic manager Neil Lennon wants Craig Bellamy’s transfer
The new Celtic manager Neil Lennon has announced that he has not given up on the Welsh forward Craig Bellamy. The Irish manager has told that he wants the star to come back and play for the club. In his previous occurrences, the 31 year old winger/striker performed exceptionally well.
The 39 year old Lennon has told that he is looking forward to his arrival but so far he is being met by resistance from Manchester City. Last season Celtics’ came 2nd in the Scottish League, missing the services of a striker with impeccable finishing abilities. In this situation Lennon thinks that Bellamy can be the perfect man to back the offence of the Parkhead club.
Experts believe that Manchester City is having too many strikers in their squad. This was their opinion last season and this has been their opinion this season. The rich club is ripping off their Arab owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, having spent over 80 million pounds this summer alone. With the money they have brought in the best players from around the block like Jerome Boateng, David Silva, Yaya Toure and Aleksandar Kolarov. With such a change in situation it is expected that there will be a massive turnaround.
With all this going on it is possible that Bellamy might just be one too many strikers on the team and the 45 year old Italian manager might decide to trade him off to the Eastlands but there is something else that needs consideration; Bellamy did perform beautifully last season, he was simply the 11th hour Samaritan to them, scoring and saving the club on many crucial moments.
Mancini is also facing another problem with his star studded line up for the squad. Due to the 25 man squad rule, he will not be able to pick all of his star players in the line up and in the end he will have to send his players on loan or pot for transfers.
Tottenham Hotspurs, Celtic, Fulham, Liverpool and Aston Villa are the teams on top of the list that are interested in buying their players. In the beginning of the summers they had plans to get rid of about 13 of their players but so far they have not managed much and they are claiming that they are still scouring the market for possible options. With the transfer window closing in and the deadline being the 31st of August a lot is expected from the players.
On Bellamy’s bidding issue the Celtic manager Lennon stated, “I wouldn't like to say anything at the minute on that. I would hope we could make a signing like that, we would all hope so, but it's still up in the air. I don't know if we will but, if not, we have a lot of attacking options as it is”.
Previously Bellamy has spent about six months with Celtic, while he was with the Newcastle in 2005 he gave an outstanding performance of producing 7 goals in just 12 matches.
The Celtic manager also stated that they were emphasizing on their defence, “We always wanted that but it's easier said than done. Looking at the squad, we are a wee bit inexperienced”.
He also explained that increasing the quality of the team’s defence was the reason they were interested in buying defenders who have had experience at good clubs, “That's why we went for Sol Campbell, David James and Jimmy Bullard. We'll just keep going. Obviously, if we continue to struggle to keep clean sheets, I wouldn't be happy going into the season with the same back four but, if I have to, we will”.
He added, “I'd like to keep a balanced back four as much as you can so they can build up some sort of relationship. We'll think about that over the next couple of days but hopefully we can get one or two new players in the meantime”.
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