THERE IS NO WAY BACK
Dermot’s metrics must tell him Lennon is done
WHEN little anyone says makes sense any longer, you know it is time up. When the messages become an insult to the intelligence, something has to change. Neil Lennon is finished as Celtic manager. He was finished, really, the moment Ferencvaros dumped him out of the Champions League at the qualifying stage for the second time in two seasons back in August.
Of course, the board, a naturally conservative bunch, may keep plodding on with the Northern Irishman because they fear changing personnel would bring too much upheaval with 10 in a row on the line. They may suspect Rangers still have it in them to wet the bed again and go to pieces.
However, it is pretty clear what should come next. After all, if the directors stick with the status quo, just keeping their fingers crossed and hoping for the best against all evidence, it surely confirms their time at the club is up too.
Major shareholder Dermot Desmond. Chief executive Peter Lawwell. All of them.
If Celtic do not get a successor to Lennon i n soon — and they must surely have been scouting potential replacements since that Ferencvaros disaster unfolded — it says a lot about what the ambitions of the club really are.
Desmond (below) said earlier this season that he believed the current squad would beat the Martin O’Neill team that went to the final of the UEFA Cup in 2003. It is just one of many absurd utterances from the club’s powerbase that have left the saner element of the Celtic fanbase questioning the reality of their own existence.
‘Every year since I have had somewhat of an influence within the club, the ambition is to improve in every metric, full stop,’ added Desmond.
Well, your multi-million-pound squad with its exorbitant wage bill has just been taken apart 4-1 at home by Sparta Prague’s reserves in UEFA’s consolation cup.
That’s just two months after being bounced out of the Champions League qualifiers by some mob from Hungary and a few weeks after failing to get a shot on target against Rangers at home.
What other metrics do you need to tell you that you are going nowhere other than backwards? At speed. No matter how much cash keeps getting thrown at the project.
Some may scatter rose petals in the manager’s path because of a good first half against
Aberdeen in a cup semi — or some other straightforward win against clubs with a fifth or a tenth or a fifteenth of his budget — but Lennon’s side is now failing consistently in the games that matter most.
Cluj and Copenhagen at home last season were awful. Ferencvaros and Sparta speak for themselves. The way things stand against a Rangers side looking much more resilient than last year, the title race is going to boil down to the Old Firm encounters.
We are at the point now where Celtic barely lay a finger on their arch-rivals when they convene. Are they really going to risk going to Ibrox on January 2 with Lennon still in charge when he seems further away than ever from getting a tumultuous season under control?
In Celtic’s last two league meetings with Rangers, they have been outplayed at Parkhead. They did win the Betfred Cup final, only thanks to Alfredo Morelos fluffing his lines and Fraser Forster showing Hercules how it’s done.
The fall-out from Thursday night’s nadir at home to Sparta has offered nothing to cling on to. Indeed, it has shed greater light on the state the place appears to be in.
What does Lennon mean by insisting there needs to be a ‘culture change’? He has been the manager for nearly two years. He surely put the culture that exists in place and has allowed it to develop in this way. In any case, wasn’t he insisting up until Thursday night that everything behind doors was hunky-dory?
He also stated after-match that he didn’t know where the performance against Sparta came from. Has he not been watching since the start of the campaign?
Whatever Lennon may think, this is not rooted in any wish to be disrespectful. It is nothing personal whatsoever. He is, by and large, a good man to deal with. He has achieved great things as a player and manager.
It is just not working out and there is little to suggest it is going to get sufficiently better any time soon. And there is too much at stake, the history at hand this term and the required preparations for what comes after, for the Celtic hierarchy to put their heads under the duvet and pray the storm will pass.
Lennon lit a torch under the building after Ferencvaros when stating that players had been trying to get out of the club for six months and would be dealt with.
He didn’t deal with them, though. They all stayed as further millions were spent on guys who now don’t play. Lennon started backtracking almost immediately and went on to spend weeks dressing up dreadful performances as something worthy of throwing a party over.
Turning on the media, blaming them for noise about his future, was the kind of deflection tactic only the desperate consider. As for being upset about Shane Duffy being called ‘rank rotten’ by Kris Commons in a newspaper? Commons was being kind.
This is Scottish football. And Celtic. And when you are underperforming as badly as this when you are being paid so well, it becomes a rough, knockabout arena.
Given where Rangers were a few years ago, 10 in a row should have been shooty-in for the Parkhead club. Europe should have brought hundreds of millions of pounds through the door to fund eternal dominance.
The Champions Route, let’s face it, gives Celtic an easily negotiable path to the group stage of the Champions League. They have made it there two years out of seven.
It is pathetic and reflects badly on those operating at levels way above the manager.
Lawwell will be almost 62 at the end of this term and 17 years in the job. Win ‘The 10’ and it would seem an ideal time to hand on the torch. Lose it and he might not have a choice.
It’s what Desmond wants to do that really matters.
He had a shot at going big with Brendan Rodgers and it ended sourly with, no matter the recent revisions of history, European success still a pipedream.
Will he want to have a go at bringing in an elite coach again after the economic chaos of Covid-19? Is there some other strategy aimed at building a club with better scouting, recruitment and youth development and a way of turning handsome revenue into something bigger than just a yearly joust with the local rivals for a low-grade domestic title?
That’s clearly not what Rangers want. They already have a team punching above its weight in UEFA competition.
‘Europe is so important as a yardstick of our football progression,’ insisted Desmond in a rare interview with The Athletic in September.
You know exactly where you are after Thursday’s shambles then, Dermot. It’s time to show whether that was just more in the way of hollow platitudes or whether you really mean what you said.
Because if you are willing to let this continuing decline go on any longer, with Celtic fulfilling the role of absolute nobodies outside of Scotland, it is clear you need to sell up and ship out too.