JOHN Hartson says that modern-day players cannot accept criticism in the same way that he and Neil Lennon did when they were teammates at Celtic.

Lennon was suspended as Hibernian manager on Friday night following a reported bust-up with striker Florian Kamberi, who reacted angrily and threatened to quit the club over being singled out at a team meeting to go over the midweek defeat at Motherwell.

And while Hartson stressed that he wasn’t privy to the details of what was said at that meeting, he believes that players these days would be shocked if they were exposed to the sort of ‘personal abuse’ dished out by the likes of former Celtic manager Martin O’Neill.

“Neil would get on my case when we were teammates, but that was only because his standards were so high and he had such a ferocious will to win,” Hartson said.

“Neil has probably laid out a few home truths, but he doesn’t need me to tell him that players now are not like they were 15 or 20 years ago. We just accepted criticism, and in fact, it fired us up.

“Martin O’Neill would slaughter me, saying that I was too heavy and that I had too many crocodile sandwiches the night before a game, but I never went running to my agent.

“He gave us some horrendous, personal abuse. You would think to yourself ‘that is wrong gaffer, that’s personal’. He could humiliate you in front of the team and make you feel so small, but it was accepted. You took it on the chin and you made damn sure it wasn’t you that was taking the rollicking the following week.

“Nowadays, football is different, and players are different. If there is an issue or a player isn’t happy, they will run to their agent and they can quite easily manufacture a way out of the club. For me, if a player isn’t getting on with his manager, it’s because they are not willing to get their head down and make sure that their relationship with their gaffer gets better.

“Players now can’t accept a bollocking it would seem. Neil would have been looking for a reaction, he would have been wanting his player to think ‘I’ll show you, and next Saturday I’m going to prove you wrong.’”