NEIL Lennon has pitted his wits against AC Milan both as a Celtic player in 2004 and 2007, and then again as manager of the club back in 2013.

Not only does he know how tough the Italian side will be, but he is also aware of the excitement that those games against one of Europe’s top names will be for his squad of players.

And he’s hoping that the Hoops will be able to get their Europa League Group H campaign off to a winning start when they play host to AC Milan on Thursday, October 22.

“I’m sure the players are looking forward to it, and they’ve got some great players,” the manager told Celtic TV. “I think there’s been an improvement in AC Milan over the last couple of seasons and, slowly but surely, they’ve started to get better.

“They’re in a transitional period. They’re not the force that they were but I think the owners behind the scenes want to make them a force again in Italian football. They’re building their way up to that and they’re AC Milan – that name carries a lot of weight around world football, never mind European football.

“But our players will be excited by it. It always brings the best out in them and hopefully we can maximize home advantage.”

A week after that match at Celtic Park, the Hoops will be on their travels to take on Lille at the Stade Pierre Mauroy. And there will be a familiar face in the French side’s ranks in the shape of Timothy Weah.

The American winger spent the latter half of the 2018/19 season on loan at Celtic, making 17 appearances and scoring four goals.

“Lille are a very good side, a quality side who’ve been in the Champions League for a few years,” Neil Lennon said. "Timothy did very well for me in a few of the games. He was more of a squad player coming off the bench, but he started a couple of games and got himself a couple of goals, so it’ll be good to see him again.

“I don’t know too much about Sparta Prague but we’ll have all our prep work done for when we do play them, but you can imagine they’ll be another very good European side. They’re linked with talent and it’s linked with great names, so that’s exactly what we wanted.

“Any of the teams in the group could have been in pot one when you look at the quality of them. I think it’s a measure of how well we’ve done over the years that we made pot one, so that’s good for the reputation of the club. So we’ll see how the group transpires.

“We want to try and win all our home games. We did that last season and it put us on a really good footing in the group, so that’s our first objective really – to win the game against Milan and take it from there.”

Manager: We want to get off to winning start against AC Milan