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CELTIC manager Neil Lennon has been charged with driving through a red light in Glasgow.

In today's Rumour Mill: Stokes ready for Parkhead challenge; Rangers grab Foster in surprise loan deal; Hibs boost defence; plus the rest of the news and reaction followin

Yesterday was D-day for football managers, as they sought to bolster their squads for the last time this year. Who went where? Find out in our at-a-glance list.

Anthony Stokes was relieved to get a second chance to sign for Celtic after Neil Lennon beat the transfer deadline to purchase the Irish striker from Hibernian.

ANTHONY Stokes believes he is ready to cope with the pressure of leading the line for Celtic in their bid to reclaim the SPL title this season and insists goals will be easier

The 4-0 thrashing in Utrecht last week was painful but came as no surprise; the team has not gelled and Lenny still played the usual suspects who consistently fail whenever a

Rangers begin their Co-operative Insurance Cup defence with a third-round home tie against Irn-Bru First Division side Dunfermline.

Celtic's largest shareholder Dermot Desmond believes the influence media organisations wield will lead to the Old Firm eventually joining England's Premier League.

TODAY is transfer deadline day, and you can follow all the last minute wheeling and dealing right here.

ANTHONY Stokes will join Celtic today, subject to a medical, after Hibernian agreed to part company with last season's 23-goal top scorer for a fee of £1.2 million.

Hibs boss John Hughes today admitted Easter Road striker Anthony Stokes has his heart set on a move to Celtic although no deal has yet been struck between the two clubs.

Neil Lennon hailed Shaun Maloney after he won the penalty that gave Celtic a hard-earned win at Motherwell.

AT THE end of a week when they hit rock bottom on the continent, Celtic still had enough about them to move to the SPL summit as they eked out a hard-earned but merited victor

MOTHERWELL manager Craig Brown avoided throwing any punches at Fir Park yesterday, but he aimed a couple of verbal blows at referee Dougie McDonald and Celtic forward Shaun Ma

IF yesterday's below par performance was Anthony Stokes's final match for Hibs, then it will not be one for him to recall with fondness, according to his long-term men

CELTIC and Hibernian are on the verge of agreeing a fee for the Easter Road club's top goalscorer of last season, Anthony Stokes, according to reports last night.

Neil Lennon stood only 17 minutes away from crisis here. At the end of a week in which Celtic were bounced out of Europe in embarrassing circumstances, the manager could scarcely afford to see league points dropped at Fir Park.

A penalty averted that troublesome scenario. Shaun Maloney, Celtic's only impressive performer, was bundled over by Steven Saunders, and the visitors were given the chance they needed to secure a timely win. Daryl Murphy did the rest from 12 yards, much to Lennon's relief.

Craig Brown, the Motherwell manager, accepted there was contact between Saunders and Maloney but still disputed the penalty award. Saunders was dismissed for his part in the affair, Maloney having been bearing down on goal at the time of the foul. "I have watched it several times now," said Brown. "Shaun Maloney's legs left the ground very quickly. [The referee] Dougie McDonald wasn't in a good position, there were a couple of players between him and the incident, but he was very quick to give the penalty."

Brown said Maloney "went down very easily" and "very softly". In reality, the decision from the referee appeared perfectly correct.

Neither Motherwell nor Celtic excelled in a game which hardly befitted its live television status. For the first time in the SPL, broadcasters were permitted coverage from dressing rooms during half-time. Parallels with the Blue Square Premier League, who previously allowed viewers the same privilege, could have stretched to the standard of fare on offer.

Only Maloney ever appeared likely to lift the gloom, a terrific individual run in the first half culminating in a shot which flew just wide of the home goal. Maloney had again come close before the decisive moment, at which he collected a Daniel Majstorovic header before being halted by Saunders.

Murphy, an otherwise lumbering figure throughout the game, showed the calmness required to dispatch the penalty.Lennon, understandably, hailed Maloney's showing. "I thought he was fantastic once he went through the middle," said Celtic's manager. "We were pretty resolute at the back, the midfield were strong and athletic and the three front men did great. I'm really pleased with the performance and I thought we controlled the game for long period."

Lennon confirmed he hopes to add "a couple" of players to his squad before the transfer window closes, with Hibs' Anthony Stokes and the Israeli striker Itay Shechter the most likely candidates.

Man of the match Shaun Maloney (Celtic)

• Scottish Premier League
• Motherwell
• Celtic

Ewan Murray
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That Scottish footballers are just not up to the standards of yesteryear is a given. The likes of Kenny Dalglish would give our current crop of players a showing up - even tho

FC UTRECHT'S Edouard Duplan has branded Celtic lazy, arrogant and disorganised - and he's a fan of the Parkhead club.

With Aiden McGeady's exit, the SPL is now a star-free zone

The last light illuminating Scottish football was extinguished when Aiden McGeady left Glasgow, bound for Moscow. The fee Celtic received was around £10m, a record for a Scottish player. This, though, will not console Celtic followers who watched their team exit European competition again last Thursday, annihilated 4-0 by a team which finished seventh in the Dutch league.

On the same day, McGeady learned that he will be playing at Stamford Bridge in the autumn as his new club, Spartak, play Chelsea in the Champions League. Celtic will have the homespun delights of Motherwell, Paisley and Kilmarnock.

McGeady is the finest natural talent Scotland has produced since Kenny Dalglish. He is one of the few British footballers who possesses magic in either foot. Yet a myth was invented that he was all show and no substance. Barry Ferguson, the former Rangers captain, was similarly traduced in the country that currently lies 41st in the FIFA rankings. In his first full season in the English Premier League, he was one of the players of the season.

Scottish football fans are delusional about this game that our country helped to invent. We claim to cherish artistry and self-expression. In the bar, we will happily gather round the old men of our tribes and prevail upon them to tell us of Baxter and Johnstone, Gilzean and Cooke. Yet our loudest cheers are now reserved for the hammer-throwers and bottom-feeders who proliferate in Scottish football.

Behind my home, trees prevent me witnessing the amateur football matches that unfold beyond. Yet the audio delights are surely more entertaining than the visual. The language is functional, industrial, Lowland Scots. This is football in the raw played by amateurs and juniors letting off steam at the end of a working week. Yet the same values hold sway in our professional game.

In the past three weeks, four of our best clubs have been gently removed from European competition by a collection of mediocre and plodding outfits they would have been expected to defeat a generation ago. The international team recently produced a lamentable display as they were beaten 3-0 by Sweden. Rangers have been drawn in a Champions League group that includes Manchester United, Valencia and Bursaspor, the champions of Turkey, a country 13 places above Scotland in the rankings.

Meanwhile, the report by Henry McLeish into the reasons why we are so bad at football will lie forgotten on the shelves of those who run our country and our game.

They will say that his proposal to build more indoor training facilities is too expensive for a country facing spending cuts and a sharp rise in public sector unemployment.

Several measures would improve our game at little or no cost. These include a winter break and a later end to the season. Our children should be encouraged to play in summer when pitches are at their best. No senior club should field more than three non-Scots. In this way, we will reduce the number of our talented young players who are displaced by overpaid continental misfits.

And could we be more selective in those whom we choose to grant the privilege of coaching our youngsters? Preference really ought to be given to those who can walk and talk at the same time and who can last an entire game without verbally abusing the children entrusted to their care.

• Scottish Premier League
• Celtic

Kevin McKenna
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