NEIL LENNON has told his Celtic players that they have a chance to go down in history ahead of tomorrow's Scottish Cup semi-final clash against Aberdeen at Hampden.
With the Premiership trophy and the Betfred Cup already in Celtic's trophy cabinet, Lennon's men are aiming to win through to the final in today's rearranged encounter, and a chance to secure a fourth successive Treble.
The Celtic manager thinks that such an achievement would never be matched, and he says his players should be given immense credit for putting themselves in such a position.
“I totally agree [that it is a remarkable achievement]” Lennon said. “These players should be given that respect. We’ll never see it again, I don’t think.
“It’s another semi-final. The players are really looking forward to it and we’ve had a good look at Aberdeen. There’s a familiarity there. We know what we’ll come up against and semi-finals are always tense occasions.
“I think this one will be the first one at Hampden without a crowd, so it will be different, but the premise is the game. We’d dearly love to win the game.
“Aberdeen have won a lot of games this season, they gave us a real challenge last weekend and we expect the game to be pretty similar to the one there.
“It’s been wonderful [at Hampden]. Semi-finals and finals. The players have been outstanding and the occasion going there and winning is very special with the supporters there to see it.
“It’ll be different on Sunday, but the focus will all be on trying to extend this run of cup wins and Cup Finals.
“We know we’re in for a real stiff examination.”
Lennon thinks it was the right decision to mothball the tournament until now, with his only regret being that supporters still won’t be allowed into the national stadium.
“I think they were hoping that by this stage we’d have crowds in,” he said.
“I think that was the whole reasoning behind pushing the games down the line. That hasn’t been the case, so what do you do? You have to try and complete it and then move onto the next one.
“I think the four teams left in the competition would have all wanted it to be finished having earned the right to be there. It’s now up for grabs.
“We all have the chance of winning a bit of silverware which would be brilliant.
“It would be brilliant for the other clubs but ultimately fantastic for us.”
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