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Lennon urges Celtic players to unleash their inner devil

Celtic manager Neil Lennon hopes his players can begin to come out of their shells and show a bit of devil.

Following the 1-1 draw with Rennes in the Europa League on Thursday, in which the Hoops conceded a poor own-goal in the first half, Lennon has implored his men to be more assertive and take after Anthony Stokes who generally tends to wear his heart on his sleeve.

"Yes, I think a few of them are too quiet," he said.

"They are young and a nice bunch of boys but they need to let their personalities come out a bit more.

"Sometimes you want a little bit of the devil to manifest itself.

"We see plenty of it around the training centre and on the training pitch.

"I'd like them to come out of their shells a bit more and take a bit more responsibility.

"Stokes has plenty of the devil in him, he just needs to channel it in the right direction.

"We've had a chat with him about his off-field discipline and he's getting a lot of respect from the players now because he's doing it on the pitch.

"I thought he was brilliant in France on Thursday."

He added: "Hopefully the display over there will give us momentum.

"I want us to play well against Aberdeen and follow up what was a good performance with another one.

"Consistency in games has been lacking and we'll be looking for that again."

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Andrew Slevison
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