JUST IN;Wolves star makes Celtic “jet lag” suggestion; loved impressive Dublin crowd

The Hoops were the better side for long spells at the Aviva Stadium, and led through a Kyogo Furuhashi strike before Matheus Cunha converted a late penalty

Doherty controversially won that spot-kick after going down under a challenge from Joe Hart.

Wolves did finish the game the stronger of the two sides, and the defender had an interesting theory for why that may have been the case.

“Look, I think Celtic have been in Japan for the last few weeks,” he told Viaplay Sports.

“So maybe they suffered a bit of jet lag. We came on strong at the end. It was a good run out in front of a great crowd on a big pitch so I think everybody is pretty happy.

“I don’t know how many were here today. Maybe close to 30,000 for a friendly.

“You always love playing in the national stadium. Every time you get out here is pretty special even when you’re not playing for your country.”

While Doherty’s jet lag claims may be a little off given that Celtic have been back from Japan for the best part of a week, he is totally right to praise the crowd.

With the game only being announced 17 days ago, that was a very impressive showing.

Celtic are likely to be backed by similar numbers on Tuesday evening against Athletic Club while Celtic Park will be sold-out next Saturday against Ross County.

Speaking post game to ViaPlay Sports, Doherty expressed his concern over being the only incoming so far as he said:

“Yeah look I don’t think things are perfect behind the scenes at all.

“But as players, there’s literally nothing we can do about it except for go out onto the pitch and carry out whatever the manager wants us to do.

“The seasons not far away so we can just knuckle down and get training, work hard and see what happens in the transfer window but for sure, we do need some bodies.”

Clearly he isn’t please with the squad, with this coming across like a plea to the board to bring in some numbers.

He insisted that he is ‘worried’ about his squad size and lack of recruitment, according to Express and Star.

 

This comes after he spoke earlier this week with Guillem Balague on the ‘pity’ it was to have to sell Raul Jimenez.

Here he insisted that the decision wasn’t in his hands, clearly pointing fingers at the club heirarchy.

What happens next?

Well what should happen and what will happen are two very different things.

However it is difficult to imagine a scenario where this season is successful and Lopetegui remains in his role, unless he is backed by upper management.

Therefore it seems quite simple what is needed to be done, the club need to provide Lopetegui with the resources he needs to get this team performing.