Ruairi Daly 
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Former Celtic manager Neil Lennon believes the Europa League could help Ronny Deila’s development as the Hoops manager.
The current Bolton manager has sympathy for his predecessor as he faced the same pressures and demands during his time in charge, reports the Glasgow Evening Times.
In Deila’s first two seasons in charge, the Norwegian has failed to qualify for the Champions League, but Lennon found the Europa League to be a learning curve during his tenure.
I found the Europa League beneficial for the Champions League. We had Udinese and Atletico Madrid, Rennes and that was a very good group.
Ajax maybe aren’t as strong as they were, Fenerbahce have spent a bit of money and Molde are certainly beatable home and away.
And Lennon, who led Celtic to the last-16 of the Champions League and famously beat Barcelona, looks at this year’s group in a similar light.
Celtic have Ajax, Fenerbahce and Molde are no mugs either. So, yeah, the group is mouth-watering. It will be good for Ronny and the players. So maybe that will be a good yardstick for building for next season – and hopefully for the Champions League.
Lennon also understands that Celtic can’t be as competitive as they have in previous year’s as they have lost several key players in Victor Wanyama, Fraser Forster and Virgil van Dijk over the last few seasons.
Maybe they are just a little bit short of the Champions League at the moment because basically over the last there or four years they have sold their best players to keep the economic side of things going.
Back in 2003, Celtic went on one of the greatest adventures in the clubs history and Lennon was part of the team that Martin O’Neill assembled. Although the side isn’t as strong as then, there is still expectations for Celtic to progress in the competition.
In 2003 we got knocked out by Basel and went on to the UEFA Cup final. Whether this team can go on and do that I don’t know. But you can go on and make a run at it. It just adds to the experience that they’ll get playing against the quality of sides they’ll come up against.
Eric Knott 
