Title is all Lenny needs to get job ... past record, transfer dealings and tactical acumen show he’s got what it takes
NEIL LENNON started the bid for Celtic’s 10 in a row. He deserves the chance to try to finish it.
They say timing is everything. In football it’s especially key.
Just ask Lennon. In January he was in a hotel foyer in Dubai talking about his plans for Hibs and how he was trying to get the backing to rebuild a superb team he had crafted at Easter Road.
The following month he was out the door in controversial circumstances, contemplating where to go for a holiday and what TV work he’d be accepting in the upcoming weeks.
Fast forward another few weeks and he’s back in charge of Celtic after Brendan Rodgers decided to take the walk to Leicester. No wonder he said after winning at his former club last weekend he needed a couple of days to catch his breath and work out where he was.
Everyone else is now doing the same, taking a step back and having a look at what the future may hold at Parkhead.
Lennon’s availability was perfect for Celtic at a torrid time.
Rodgers’s mind would not have been in it if Celtic had rejected Leicester’s advances and he had been forced to stay.
And goodness knows where they would have started trying to find a boss who knew exactly what was needed and that it was needed right now with 11 games to go in a title race and a Scottish Cup quarter-final looming.
Lennon was the perfect and available fit. But this guy should not be viewed by anyone as some sort of sticking plaster.
The former skipper and boss gets backed by the punters because he genuinely adores Celtic. But to suggest he’s just a cheerleader is absurd. Lennon took Celtic to the last 16 of the Champions League. Everyone talks about Barcelona but results such as the win in Spartak Moscow, a first away from home in the group stage, were watershed moments for the club. He nurtured some outstanding players. Some have gone, Virgil van Dijk, Victor Wanyama, Fraser Forster, Ki Sung-Yueng sold for big profit. Some are still there and paying their dues on the park. It was Lennon who found Tom Rogic. He gave James Forrest his big chance. Look how that’s worked out.
Lennon won three titles at Parkhead before deciding his time was up and the period in England wasn’t great but what a job he did at Hibs.
Rodgers was held up as a master tactician but here’s the thing. There is not one manager in the Scottish game who outfoxed him more than Lennon.
He got his Hibs team to give Celtic some torrid times. Rodgers never won a game at Easter Road. That says it all.
Lennon has all the credentials. People say he comes with baggage. Let’s get one thing straight. He’s not the one carrying the bags. He’s no angel but it’s the loonies who taunt and verbally abuse him who really cause the bother.
It’s ridiculous to suggest he needs to win a treble to keep the job. Why does he? Anything can happen in a cup game.
So long as Lennon gets Celtic over the line in the title race, that’s par golf after Rodgers put him in the middle of the fairway with a tee shot that built an eight-point lead.
Adding the Treble should not be pivotal to his prospects.
Lennon is an experienced and first-class manager who knows the inner workings of the club inside out and has the fans beside him.
Win the title and there’s no need to look beyond him.
SPORTS VIEW