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NEIL LENNON has claimed Celtic NEED Rangers.

The fomer Hoops boss insisted it’s "essential" for Scottish football that the Ibrox club return to the top flight.

While Hearts claimed the Championship title thanks to Rangers beating Hibs 2-0 at Easter Road, Stuart McCall’s side are a whopping 26 points behind the Jambos in the table – and still in third place.

But Lennon told Goal.com he wants them in the Premiership for the good of the game’s finances.

The Bolton manager said: “It’s essential for the game in Scotland that Rangers get back to the Premiership as quickly as possible.

“They are struggling but new people have come in who I think have the best interests of the club at heart.

“Stuart McCall had a fantastic record at Motherwell. They need to get back to the Premiership for the state of the game up there – in terms of revenue, crowds, competition.

“It’s important and that’s why Scotland has struggled (in European competition).

“Celtic need it as well – the competition has been missing.”

Lennon guided Celtic to the knockout stage of the Champions League during his four-year spell as manager but revealed the overall deterioration of the Premiership's financial situation had triggered the sale of key players.

“It all depends on Celtic,” he said. “When I was there we ended up selling the crown jewels in terms of Victor Wanyama, Gary Hooper, Fraser Forster, Joe Ledley, Georgios Samaras.

“It’s very difficult to keep churning out those players but that was the financial situation.

“There’s no doubt the Scottish game is significantly weaker – Hibs, Hearts and Rangers are in the Championship and they were a big loss in terms of revenue, crowds, quality and competition.

“It’s lacking at the minute, it’s not in a great state. There’s seven or eight teams in in the Premiership who have average gates of 4-5,000 and with that it’s very difficult to compete with other European countries.”

Lennon's comments come less than a week after Celtic star Kris Commons admitted he would love to see the Hoops' arch rivals get promoted as he was missing Old Firm clashes.

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