OPINION
Neil Lennon must axe Nir Bitton if he wants to name his best possible starting line-up for Celtic’s clash against Hearts at Tynecastle on Wednesday night.
Lennon will be taking charge of his first game for the Hoops as interim manager after it was announced on Tuesday that Brendan Rodgers has quit Parkhead to join Leicester.
And the ex-Celtic star must waste no time in making changes to the starting line-up by dropping Bitton, 27, and Ewan Henderson so that Scott Brown and Callum McGregor can both return to the midfield.
Lennon must also recall Jozo Simunovic to replace Kristoffer Ajer in defence and call on Oliver Burke to replace Ryan Christie, who picked up an injury in the win against Motherwell on Sunday.
Scott Bain has been in superb form in the last couple of months so he is no-brainer to start in goals behind a back-four of Jeremy Toljan, Simunovic, Dedryck Boyata and Kieran Tierney.
Brown and McGregor should start in the central midfield positions with James Forrest and Scott Sinclair on the two wings.
Odsonne Edouard should keep his spot in the side but due to Christie’s injury he should play in a bit more of a deeper role with £30,000-a-week (Spotrac) West Brom loanee Burke ahead of him.
It is a game that Celtic must win on Wednesday and Lennon should try to make his team as attack-minded as possible to assert their dominance over Hearts and show the rest of the Scottish Premiership that Rodgers’ exit means nothing in terms of the race for the league title.