‘I would have taken the job if I was McInnes’

NEIL LENNON admits he would have taken the Rangers job had he been Derek McInnes. Lennon believes McInnes may have feared the uncertainty behind the scenes at Ibrox and not wanted to return to a ‘firefighting’ role, having had his fingers burnt at Bristol City. Lennon experienced similar issues while in charge at Bolton but believes that, had he been in McInnes’ shoes, the sheer size of the Ibrox club would have made their offer too hard to turn down. ‘If it had been me, I would have taken it. Finish second, you’ve done your job and then you build from there,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. But it’s a big, big club and they are difficult to turn down. ‘It was Derek’s decision. I’m only surmising, but he had a tough time at Bristol City behind the scenes. ‘When you’ve had that — and I’ve had it at Bolton — you don’t want to be firefighting again. So maybe that’s one of the reasons. ‘I had a really difficult time at Bolton for non-footballing reasons. We were swimming against the tide, the club was nearly in administration a couple of times and players were not being paid. ‘You don’t want to go into that scenario again if you can avoid it. It’s not enjoyable and it’s not why you go into football management. ‘By contrast, Derek is very happy in a stable environment at Aberdeen and he’s already turned down Sunderland, which looks like the right decision. ‘It’s not about the money for Derek, I don’t think. It’s about the right club and a stable environment and maybe the reason he decided to stay was he would have been going into the unknown a bit. ‘But I was surprised. Rangers backed Pedro Caixinha in the summer and they are the only club outwith Celtic that have those kind of resources. That can be a very powerful draw.’