We are not just going to roll over and make it a day out for them... they can win it next week against Rangers

SAYS NEIL LENNON

FOR anyone harbouring any lingering doubts, the clue is probably in the title of professional football manager. Even if Hibernian did not have lofty ambitions of their own to realise tomorrow, pride and unstinting loyalty to his present employers would determine Neil Lennon’s blinkered approach to the occasion.

After 11 years at Celtic Park as a player and manager, it would be preposterous to dispute that the Glasgow giants are part of the Northern Irishman’s DNA. Eight times as a player and a manager he sampled a Celtic title-winning party over those years. But this occasion is strictly business.

‘I’ve had enough of them,’ Lennon smiled. ‘I’ve had plenty and they are great days but I don’t want one at our expense. They can win it next week.

‘For the team going for the title momentum is with you. But sometimes, because you can almost touch it, there is an anxiousness, and they are in a rush to get there.

‘I am sure Brendan (Rodgers) will want it done tomorrow and we all know they are going to win it eventually.

‘But we have a lot to play for, so we are not just going to make it a day out for Celtic.’

Even if Hibernian were presently drifting towards the end of the season, Lennon’s approach would not differ in the slightest.

As it happens, the points on offer are arguably more valuable to his side than a Celtic team who have five free hits to get over the line.

Presently three points behind Rangers and Aberdeen in the race for second, a victory would be a timely surge of momentum for a team which still has two home games to come.

‘I have always believed,’ Lennon said of the prospect of claiming the runners-up spot.

‘I said at the start of the season that it would be Celtic then Aberdeen and Rangers — and then the rest of us fighting it out.

‘We now have a chance to break into that second bracket and there is no reason why, if we play the way we have been playing, and depending on other results, we can’t do that.’

Inactive on Scottish Cup semi-final weekend, what Lennon’s players watched unfold from afar will hardly have dissuaded them from the notion that it can be done.

Aberdeen and Rangers didn’t so much as exit the competition at the hands of Motherwell and Celtic respectively but capitulate.

Indeed, so abject were both performances that flushing them out of the system over the course of one week may prove easier said than done.

‘I’m not convinced that the semifinals will have a huge impact on the coming games,’ Lennon added.

‘Aberdeen have been there and done it over a few years. Yes, for a couple of days they will be down about it but Derek (McInnes) will pick them up.

‘Rangers have had a tumultuous week but sometimes you get a bit of strength through adversity and they will come again.

‘I think we need to win four games to finish second but that is a big ask. If we can do that, then we will give ourselves a big chance.’

Irrespective of how it pans out, Hibs’ first season back in the top flight has proved something of a revelation.

When Lennon proclaimed this time last year that his team were the second best in the country, more than a few eyebrows were raised.

They may yet come up just short over the course of 38 games.

But that prediction has surely been a source of inspiration as opposed to some kind of burden.

‘Listen we are in good form,’ he said. ‘We have lost one in 14 or something like that and some of the football we are playing, the attacking football, is very, very pleasing.

‘But we now have five cup finals and we will try to get to second place.

‘We are only three points behind, which is a great position to be in.’

Hibernian’s record against the top six offers grounds for encouragement.

They have drawn twice with Celtic, beaten Rangers twice at Ibrox and hold the upper-hand on Hearts.

After years of fragility, they are again a big-game team.

‘The mentality of the team has been good and they have believed in themselves,’ Lennon explained.

‘They have gone out on the front foot and taken the game to the opposition whenever they can.’

There’s just a chemistry at Easter Road right now, that feels right.

A talented squad still riding the crest of the wave after winning the Scottish Cup and promotion, a manager at the peak of his powers and a support who have bought into the whole thing in a huge way.

It’s certainly in sharp contrast to the ongoing tumult at Rangers which crystalised this week with the suspension of Kenny Miller and Lee Wallace for pointed remarks said to have been aimed at Graeme Murty.

Lennon doesn’t pretend to know the severity of the language used or whether it crossed the line.

As a general rule, though, he believes the views of senior players, provided they are delivered in the right manner, are to be valued.

‘They are entitled to their opinion,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I ask players what they think and whether they think something is working or if they want to change it — and that is all right because they are the ones out there performing.

‘Sometimes, I am out there during a game and I still think I should change it and that is common sense.’