Neil Lennon has added to the war of words between Celtic and West Brom over the treatment of loanee Oliver Burke.
Burke spent the second half of the season on loan with the Scottish champions where he made 19 appearances under Lennon.
However, he was subbed off at half-time in the last league game of the season and then dropped from the squad for the cup final.
West Brom technical director Luke Dowling said “we do not expect any of our players to go anywhere near Celtic” after what he called unfair treatment of Burke.
In an interview for Sky Sports Lennon hit back saying that he may have treated Burke “too well” at times.
“He played a lot of games. Maybe in hindsight I was too good in treating him too well at times, compared to the rest of the group,” Lennon said.
“I have no idea where this sort of tirade has come from. This could have been dealt with privately and professionally.
“I don’t know who the individual was who was criticising either my style of management or the club in the treatment of Oli Burke. But there is just no foundation or evidence for that whatsoever.”
OPINION
This is all getting a bit tawdry now and it would be best for both clubs to try to deal with this matter privately. It’s not helping Burke any and it makes both clubs look petty. We don’t know what happened with Burke to cause Dowling to make his initial statement but his words were strong – too strong without any actual substance to the allegations. Dowling hinted at something behind the scenes when he said, “They [Celtic] will know what went on”, but Celtic and Lennon have rigorously denied anything untoward. Lennon said that Celtic need to defend themselves but we’re not sure how any of what he said will actually make any difference. Saying he treated him “too well” and that he doesn’t know who Luke Dowling is just comes across as a bit childish. As for West Brom, they need to either put up or shut up. Burke wasn’t good enough for their first-team – he dropped down into the Under-21s before being sent out on loan – and he came in for some heavy criticism at Celtic. If West Brom have any other complaints against Lennon they should make them public. Hopefully, this is the last we’ll hear about this.