I wanted to come back. Neil was keen to bring me back... but it just fizzled out
MJALLBY MISSED OUT ON LENNON REUNION BUT NOW HOPES HOWE CAN MAKE HIS OWN CALLS
GIVEN the curious time and place that he was made an offer he could scarcely refuse, it was perhaps understandable that Neil Lennon was not minded to procrastinate over the small print.
Just minutes after leading Celtic to the 2019 Scottish Cup over Hearts, confirmation that the job was his on a permanent basis, should he so desire, was delivered by Dermot Desmond in the shower room at Hampden.
If he had his time again, you wonder if Lennon would now pause for breath and think the whole thing through before accepting.
The chaos of the national stadium that afternoon was no place for snap decisions yet Lennon was compelled to make one.
In time, it became clear that the job of his dreams came with certain conditions. Inheriting a backroom staff being chief among them.
That the line-up of Lennon, John Kennedy and Damien Duff worked well together was not up for debate. It had helped secure a third-straight Treble and the man from Lurgan the opportunity to manage the side for a second time.
Lennon spoke at length about the debt he owed his assistants after taking over from Brendan Rodgers in February. He rated and trusted them both.
Yet they were still not his men. Certainly not in the way that Garry Parker or Johan Mjallby once were.
Evidently, Lennon felt there might be room for manoeuvre on this matter once he got his feet back under desk. He was to be mistaken.
‘We had a brief chat about it when he got in the door,’ said Mjallby. ‘He was interested to try and bring me on board but that fizzled out a wee bit, which was fine. I’ve not been walking around thinking about it.
‘When it comes to Eddie Howe, I personally think a manager should be allowed to bring in the people he trusts 100 per cent.
‘But in this case, I don’t know if Neil ever had any discussions with Peter Lawwell about this.’
You can bet your bottom dollar that such matters are high on the agenda of the ongoing negotiations between the former Bournemouth manager and the Celtic hierarchy in these moments.
While Howe is apparently content to have Kennedy and Gavin Strachan as part of his set-up, it remains to be seen if he wins the argument over Richard Hughes and Mark Burchill as his choice of technical director and scout, respectively.
Whatever errors Lennon made this season, the pervading view is that he was hampered by a lack of autonomy. If you are going to fail, isn’t it always better to fail on your own terms?
Mjallby believes his former team-mate will regret that he was denied that right yet feels he will eventually be the better for it.
‘The good thing that’s come out of this for him personally is that he has had different assistants,’ he told the Celtic Huddle Podcast.
‘Obviously the one he worked most with is Garry Parker. Now he had a chance to work with John and Gavin.
‘When the next job comes calling, he probably knows what kind of assistants he wants because we all have different ability and he can probably pick the best if for him.’
Lennon has recently broken cover as an informed and articulate media pundit. Should he so please, a comfortable career on the Match of the Day sofa awaits.
But Mjallby feels that is not his natural habitat. Not yet anyway. An impressive body of work as a manager won’t be overshadowed by a disappointing recent year for too long.
‘There was probably no other way it could have ended for him because it’s such a results-driven business — especially when you are manager of Celtic,’ he said.
‘I don’t think anyone was surprised in the end. It’s obviously still sad as I respect him a lot as a person and especially as a manager. This doesn’t take away from that. I think Neil is an excellent manager and is a true Celtic legend.
‘He’s done so much good and has put so much into it. I’m confident he will come back and be successful with another team somewhere else.
‘It’s all down to his motivation and his hunger for it. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with Neil again.’
For now at Celtic Park, Kennedy is holding the fort in the full expectation that Howe will be standing there soon enough.
The argument that the Englishman would be better off delaying his start date until this wretched season is over has definite merit. Mjallby just doesn’t buy it.
‘The dream scenario would be that he comes in straight away to get a good chance to assess the squad,’ he stated.
‘That gives him time to see the squad in action and make his own mind up where he needs to recruit, what positions and so on.
‘He will come in the summer, that’s probably what I think. I hope it’s a closed deal.’
He doesn’t know Howe personally yet experienced the full force of his lung-bursting brand of attacking football when he and Lennon were at Bolton. It left a lasting impression.
‘They ran away with the Championship,’ he said. ‘During that season, they wanted to go on the attack all the time and they had the right players.
‘But even if you look at what he did in the Premier League, they haven’t really strayed away from that. He’s done well with Bournemouth in the Premier League but it’s a big difference being the manager of Celtic.’
The scale of the rebuilding job is at best significant and is likely to rival the summer of 2010 when Lennon had to rip up Tony Mowbray’s team and create his own. Mjallby believes the acquisitions made that year prove that it can be done.
‘It wasn’t really that difficult,’ he added. ‘The important thing was that we had this cushion of a couple of months after Tony Mowbray left and we had to prove ourselves over eight league games and a cup match.
‘We knew about the squad going into the summer — that we needed a lot of new faces to be able to play the way we wanted to.
‘Neil was really impressive in that sense. He knew right away the three or four players that he wanted down in the Championship and later on we got Victor Wanyama.
‘There are a lot of bargains out there if you are lucky.’
Howe’s reputation is that of a masterful coach. He will have no shortage of challenges in those he will inherit.
‘A new manager who comes in can give a player who’s low in confidence more belief by saying that you are the type of player I want in this team,’ explained Mjallby. ‘Martin O’Neill is proof of that. When he came in he changed Stiliyan’s (Petrov) fortunes and my own after a really difficult year under John Barnes.
‘So, yes, Martin brought in a lot of class acts and good characters but he got at a few of us who were low in confidence and told us we had a chance to show we were good enough.’