Could Neil Lennon’s comments put Brentford’s Romaine Sawyers off Celtic switch?

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Scottish Premiership champions Celtic will reportedly offer £2.5m for Brentford midfielder Romaine Sawyers.

Ironically enough, Celtic appear to be going all out to sign a midfielder who would have been pretty much tailor made for Brendan Rodgers.

After all, Romaine Sawyers has spent the last three seasons dominating possession and dictating the play from the centre of the park in the red and white striped shirt of Brentford.

A 27-year-old play-maker, the former West Brom youngster has averaged an 85 per cent pass completion rate in the last two years with his ability to open up a defence or fizz the ball accurately into his team-mates absolutely integral to blueprint of one of the Championship’s most free-flowing teams.

According to the Daily Record, Celtic are set to return with a £2.5 million bid after seeing an initial £1.5 million as they continue to buzz around The Bees’ star man.

But is Sawyers potentially on his way to Parkhead 12 months too late? It is not hard to imagine the St Kitts and Nevis international thriving under Brendan Rodgers’, his ability to pass the opposition into submission aligning perfectly with the Northern Irishman’s purist tendencies.

Rodgers’ successor Neil Lennon, in contrast, embodies a more old-school, direct style of football and you wonder whether Sawyer’s skillset would be bypassed as a result.

“I would like to change the purpose of our play a bit. The team liked to control games in a certain way last season. But I’d like us to be more attacking-minded,” Lennon told the Times in June.

“I would like us to be more prolific and create more chances. I want to get the ball forward to the strikers and wide men quicker. I want us to create more excitement and goal chances, rather than control the game passively.”

Sawyers can certainly shuttle balls out wide easily enough but is this really the right way to get the best out of a £2.5 million midfielder? Maybe he’s better off staying at Griffin Park after all.