EXTRA HELPINGS
Europe remains the benchmark for Lennon as he aims to augment domestic bounty
ADECADE into his managerial career, Neil Lennon hopes his peak years remain in the future. Having bagged five titles for Celtic already, next season’s tilt at 10 in a row presents an opportunity to elevate his standing in the club’s history.
Yet Lennon recoils at the idea that the capture of ‘the 10’ should see him bracketed alongside Willie Maley, Jock Stein or even his own mentor Martin O’Neill in Parkhead’s pantheon of greats.
The reason? He’s always viewed a truly successful Celtic, and, by extension, a truly successful Celtic manager, as having a real impact on the European scene.
In that arena Lennon has enjoyed some success, notably defeating Barcelona en route to the Champions League knockout stage in 2012 and, most recently, presiding over the club’s first-ever win on Italian soil, against Lazio.
But while that Rome victory was the one-off highlight of last season, Celtic’s success in topping a tricky Europa League section was bookended by the failure to defeat Cluj in the Champions League qualifying play-offs and then defeat to an average Copenhagen team in the last 32.
Although there was no European football during Maley’s 43-year dynasty, Stein led Celtic to two European Cup finals, winning one in 1967.
O’Neill, too, made his mark by leading the club into the Champions League for the first time and then taking it all the way to the 2003 UEFA Cup Final in Seville.
That, more than another domestic title, is the kind of achievement Lennon would love to place on his CV.
‘To be mentioned in the same breath as those guys would be fantastic but it depends how people view it,’ he said.
‘I think about Europe, with what Stein and Martin did. That’s the port of call for me.
‘Can I progress Celtic in Europe as well as being strong domestically?
‘That’s what we look to at the start of every season. Can we make inroads because that’s really where the gravitas comes on top of the domestic stuff.
‘I’ve got a long way to go in my own mind to be up there with the likes of Stein and O’Neill but I’ve got plenty of time hopefully and good days ahead of me to look forward to that I can achieve that.’
The greatest influence on Lennon’s own career is O’Neill.
The two Northern Irishmen (right) fell into tandem at Leicester City, where they lifted silverware together.
When O’Neill moved north to Celtic in 2000, it didn’t take Lennon long to follow and he became one of the pillars of a Treblewinning team that would evolve into a European power.
While Lennon’s £6million transfer came late in his career, his eventual move into management came well in advance of his 40th birthday. Still two birthdays short of 50, he feels he has much to offer as he prepares for the second full season of his second stint in the job. ‘I’ve had 10 but I’m hoping the best years of management are in front of me,’ he continued.
‘I came into management very early and it’s amazing to think it’s 20 years since Martin came.
‘If I could have similar successes to him I’d be absolutely delighted. The impact he had on Celtic and is still there 20 years on.
‘I also had five years with him at Leicester where he was fantastic for me and the club. He did the exact same things when he came to Celtic.
‘If in this second period I can have a similar impact on the club and the game here I’d be absolutely thrilled.’ If Lennon has an equivalent on-field general, it is Scott Brown, the man he inherited as club captain from Tony Mowbray in 2010. By sheer coincidence, Lennon and Brown share a birthday of June 25 and on that date the latter will turn 35, the age at which Lennon picked up his final trophy as Celtic skipper in 2007.
His replacement, signed by Gordon Strachan from Hibs for £4m, was none other than Brown, who has been the most influential player at the club throughout that extended run of championship wins.
‘In 15 or 20 years we’ll be talking about these great players in the club’s tapestry,’ said Lennon.
‘In terms of Browny, people will look back on his career and say what a player he was.’
Lennon welcomed his players back to Lennoxtown for training on Thursday and, as ever, it was Brown who set the pace at a social distance.
Ideally, Lennon would like to take his squad to a camp for some fullcontact training even before the restrictions are relaxed in Scotland, the better to prepare them for the Champions League qualifiers.
Celtic have not featured in the group stage of the competition since Brendan Rodgers’ second season in 2017 and Lennon wants the club back on that stage.
With UEFA still struggling to play out last year’s competitions, there is a chance that the qualifiers could either be condensed into single-leg ties, played at a later date in the calendar or a combination of both.
While a later schedule would remove the annual problem of rustiness that was so evident in last year’s Cluj tie, a packed autumn would put pressure on a squad aiming for another season of domestic dominance.
‘In terms of myself I want more,’ said Lennon. ‘I’m going for my sixth title as a manager, it would be the tenth in a row for the club.
‘We’re not thinking about 10, we’re just thinking about winning the championship.
‘There will be a lot of challenges we’ll have to overcome. We’ve won our 11th domestic trophy in a row, which is an absolutely incredible statistic at any club.
‘It shows remarkable consistency from the players. The motivation is there to continue that run as long as we can.’