Lennon confirms he wants to keep Forster and Elyounoussi

Neil Lennon has confirmed that he wants to keep loanees Fraser Forster and Mohamed Elyounoussi next season as he looks to guide Celtic to a historic tenth title win in a row.

Forster and Elyounoussi are both on loan at Celtic from Southampton but Lennon is hoping that a deal can be struck with Saints to keep them both at Parkhead next season.

As reported by the Daily Record, he said:

We’re hopeful they’ll be around but that’s a conversation we’ll have to have with Southampton and with the players individually. We’d want to keep them if we could. It keeps that continuity going rather than maybe going out and bringing other players in. If we could keep the services of those two, they know how we work and what the club is all about. They made really good contributions. Fraser was absolutely brilliant and Moey, up until the injury, was fantastic.

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It’s no surprise to see that Celtic want to keep hold of Forster, as he was an excellent loan signing, whilst Elyounoussi looked good in patches before he picked up his injury.

In a summer where finances may be tight, it remains to be seen if the Hoops can agree deals with Southampton to keep the pair. Saints will likely have their sights set on their own targets, so could probably do with selling the duo to raise funds, but there’s still no indication of the asking prices they’d put on Forster and Elyounoussi.

Lennon makes a good point about continuity and the best way for the Hoops to win a tenth title in a row is to keep as many members of the current squad together as they proved, yet again, that they were the best set of players in Scotland.