We need to enjoy game a bit more just like Jose, says Lennon

FRUSTRATED Hibs boss Neil Lennon has criticised what he calls double standards and hypocrisy after pointing out the different reactions to his and Jose Mourinho’s touchline taunts.

The Easter Road manager was left furious when he was accused of goading a Hearts supporter into throwing a coin during last week’s Edinburgh derby.

His former Celtic team-mate Gary Caldwell claimed Lennon (below) “brings a lot of it on himself ” after he was felled by a missile hurled from the Tynecastle support when he cheered a disallowed Jambos goal. Lennon rejected that suggestion last week as he insisted he was targeted because he was a Northern Irish catholic who had played for Celtic. And he raised the issue again at his prematch press conference ahead of tonight’s clash at Aberdeen after watching how Mourinho’s ear-cupping gesture following Manchester United’s last-gasp Champions League win at Juventus had failed to spark a similar kind of outcry.

He said: “I enjoyed Mourinho after the game, I knew exactly how he was feeling. But the reaction smacks of double standards and hypocrisy.

“That’s where we are with the game up here sometimes. The reaction to Jose was, ‘it’s banter, it’s fun, love it’.

“That’s the mainstream down there, up here it’s goading, inciting violence, inciting a riot. We’re human beings at the end of the day.”