Neil Lennon breaks silence on 'urinating on the pitch' row during Rapid Bucharest training session

The Celtic legend addressed the allegations during an appearance on a podcast with Frank McAvennie

Neil Lennon has dismissed claims he urinated on the pitch during a Rapid Bucharest training session, describing the allegations as "completely fabricated".

Last month, reports in Romania claimed the Celtic hero had turned up to training in a "bad state" before proceeding to relieve himself on the pitch during a session. However, the Liga 1 club quickly came out in defence of their manager to deny the claims and insisted that he is a consummate professional. The former Hoops skipper and manager has endured a tough start in the dugout at Rapid, having drawn three and lost one of his first four league matches.

But appearing on fellow Celtic legend Frank McAvennie's Let Me Be Frank podcast, the ex Northern Ireland skipper has moved to quash the unsavoury reports about his behaviour. After making reference to the allegations, McAvennie asked the 53-year-old if he hoped that by moving to Romania, he would have kept out of the spotlight, to which Lennon replied: "Yeah, exactly that. You're just getting on with your work and then you see stories like that that are completely fabricated and you think, well, it's obviously the same everywhere else. So it's just something that you have to put to one side and ignore."

Lennon has also offered a his assessment of Brendan Rodgers' first season of his second tenure in Glasgow's East End and reckons the Celtic boss has had to put up with a lot of "rubbish" from the outside. "In the end I thought he did a great job and he had to go through a really difficult period and I thought he handled all the negativity around it brilliantly", he added.

"I thought Celtic finished the season playing really well, playing some great football. He can now build on that. It’s always difficult when a manager like Ange who was really successful left and there was a huge hole to fill there, but Brendan’s an elite manager.

“Obviously with the way he left in the first place, acrimoniously, there was a lot of raised eyebrows but I think he’s loving it now. And with the whole summer of him being in control of things there will be a lot more calmness about the place and less stress regarding signings and stuff like that as well.

“Having that continuity and the players now know the way Brendan works when probably a lot of them didn’t know that when he first came back in. There was all this talk about his changing the style of play and all that rubbish, it just took a bit of time for him to get used to the players and vice versa. When they won the league at Kilmarnock the football was spectacular on a really poor pitch."