During the aftermath of yesterdayโs events at Celtic Park, I had a short Twitter conversation with a friend about Neil Lennon. Was he to blame for the result, considering he made the decision to include central defender Efe Ambrose? The Nigerian had just returned from the Cup of Nations that morning. Should he have even been allowed to play?
My point at the time: We can speculate all we want, but until we get more information from the coach, player, or teammates, we have to concede we probably donโt know enough. At least, we donโt know near as much a Neil Lennon. We donโt know how Ambrose felt, how Lennon perceives the trade-off between him and the alternatives, or how those around Celtic were seeing the situation. We needed more information before hoisting the Celtic bost.
Now we have that little more information. Kris Commons, he of the open first half chance from 12 yards out that couldnโt be steered on frame, has gone public with his criticism of Lennonโs decision. In the process, the Celtic attacker got snared in a media trap.
Scraped from an ESPNFC blog post, one that cites BBC Scotland:
โLook, the manager picked him. The manager pulled him to one side and asked him if he was feeling okay. He said he was feeling brilliant.
โIf he wasnโt feeling okay, then he should have said so. If he felt good then he should have put in a better performance.
โIt was just very sloppy individual mistakes โ something youโd probably get away with on a playground, not in the last 16 of the Champions League.โ
Commons continued:
โThere are certain individuals who let the team down.ย Hopefully this is just a one-off.ย
โThe back four have made errors which have probably cost us the tie. But itโs partly down to them why weโre here in the first place.
โItโs just a bitter one to swallow.โ
The authorโs reaction echoes other sentiments you can find online. Commons should have kept his mouth shut, not criticized his teammate and coach, and not acted like such a โfool.โ
All of which is fair. But I think Commonsโ comments are fair, too. We all saw Ambrose play, right? Whatโs Commons doing to do, insist it wasnโt a factor? Maybe he could he demurred, but that wouldnโt have gone over any better, unless Commons outright lied about Ambroseโs contributions.
I see both sides of this one, but I also canโt help but see the hypocrisy in jumping on a player for being honest. Iโm not saying that anybodyโs engaging in this on a personal level, but there is a tension between media (in general) pining for honest athletes only to deride them for as bad teammates when they remove their filters.
Calling out a teammate in the wake of a loss โ a teammate that flew back from Africa and immediately stepped on a soccer field โ is bad form. But so is calling out a guy for giving an honest answer to a question. Itโs difficult to justify coming down on a guy forย not lying.
We want players to avoid double speak, clichรฉs, and evasive answers. Except when we donโt.
