TIME IS NOW ON LENNON’S SIDE
Out of Europe twice, dumped from Betfred and no chance of winning title But if the board didn’t sack him a month ago, there’s no point now
NEIL LENNON got the board’s full backing at the club’s AGM.
If they were to sack him now on the back of the Old Firm defeat at Ibrox, I would find it extremely odd.
Neil’s hopes of winning 10 in a row are gone.
He can’t publicly give up and no one would seriously expect him to do so but, deep down, we all know it’s over.
Rangers have dropped four points all season.
The thought of them dropping 10 in the remaining games even allowing for the fact Celtic win every match left, which is a long shot, is far fetched.
The Hoops have gone out of both the Champions League and Europa League this season, they have gone out of the Betfred Cup and the title race is now over within two days of January.
It’s not a good look. And I fully accept that’s a situation which should really mean it’s the end of the road for any manager at Parkhead.
My reasoning behind saying it would be odd is all about timing.
I made no secret of the fact that I thought Neil was fortunate to keep his job on the back of the Ross County loss in the Betfred Cup which added to the two Euro exits with the title already looking like it was lost.
I said so publicly. I didn’t think he would survive and I wouldn’t have had any qualms had the board pulled the trigger at that point.
The fact they did not is what makes the dynamic of the situation right at this moment in time very interesting.
Since Peter Lawwell came out and made his speech at the AGM saying Neil was the right man for the job, they completed a quadruple Treble by winning against Hearts and won three straight league games without losing a goal before going to Ibrox.
Across the city, Celtic were dominant. In the three previous Old
Firm matches, Rangers had wiped the floor with them. Steven Gerrard’s team had played them off the park and that counts the one at Hampden 13 months ago when Neil ended up holding the Betfred Cup afterwards.
Saturday? That was different. Celtic were dominant. They controlled the game from the start until the red card. The tactics were spot on and gave the Hoops the upper hand.
The team selection was pretty much perfect in the eyes of the supporters pre match and, were it not for the heroics of Allan McGregor, Neil’s team would have been a couple of goals ahead at the interval.
Now I’m not naive. I know none of that really matters in the cold light of day. Celtic lost and that is the bottom line. But my point is that, if the board thought Neil was still the right man for the job after the County debacle with supporters protesting outside of the stadium, how can that really have changed in the light of the performance at Ibrox?
Fair enough, you can say that if that’s the case, you have to take into account the fact Rangers were far better than Celtic on the day when Neil got the first trophy of his Treble.
But you get my point about them being in a pickle now.
Funnily enough, watching the game at the weekend was like watching Hampden in December 2019 in complete reverse.
McGregor took on the role of Fraser Forster and the best team lost courtesy of the opposition breaking through at a set-piece. Not getting Forster was a
hammer blow at the start of this season and that’s only confirmed when you look at what McGregor did on Saturday. The goalkeeping position remains a nightmare for Neil and we still don’t know if Vasilis Barkas can make a save because Rangers didn’t ask him to produce one through the entire 90 minutes in Govan.
Not getting that nailed down has been costly and so has the defending.
Nir Bitton was so naive to let Alfredo Morelos do what he did.
The Colombian offered little beforehand but you know that run is a trait of his and to fall into the trap was inexcusable by the Israeli.
Whether you think it’s a red or not, it was a dreadful error to get into that position in the first place.
Neil had no luck as Christopher Jullien would have been there and not Bitton had the Frenchman not whacked his knee against a post four days earlier and been ruled out for four months.
But you can’t hide from the fact that a defender was needed back in the summer and, when Neil got to choose one, his pick was Shane Duffy and he couldn’t even trust him to start at Ibrox. That’s on the manager. David Turnbull and Ismaila Soro have been shining lights in the past few weeks but the striking positions have been a disappointment. Where is Albian Ajeti? Where was Leigh Griffiths after lockdown? And where has Odsonne Edouard been all season?
Those all fall on to Neil and he’s not daft enough to think he doesn’t carry the can for the failings all across the pitch at various stages throughout this campaign.
I felt those failings were enough to warrant a managerial change last month and I said so. But, crucially, the board of directors didn’t. They disagreed. They said they’d review it in the new year. So if they didn’t think that Neil’s time was up then, I don’t genuinely see how they can think so this morning. If they did, it would be odd. DUFF LUCK Shane’s been poor