Hibs have to start thinking like Man United
SAYS NEIL LENNON
NEIL LENNON knows from experience that being the big dogs in the pound isn’t as easy as it looks.
And it’s something he says his Hibs players are going to have to cope with in a Championship title race where, for the first time, they carry the pressure of being clear favourites.
The former Celtic boss has already urged his squad to embrace the expectation created by last season’s Scottish Cup triumph and a feelgood factor that has seen over 10,700 season tickets sold.
But he has also taken his message to the extreme by telling his team that, if they want to succeed, they have to start thinking like Manchester United.
To drive home his point further, the ex-Leicester and Parkhead midfielder drew on his own move from over-performing English middleweights to the heart of a Celtic team facing an entirely different set of demands.
‘You go to Old Trafford in my playing days, you are up against Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham and Paul Scholes,’ explained the Hibs manager.
‘First of all you think: “It must be easy playing in this team, with Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke up front, Jaap Stam at the back.”
‘But you raise your game. Because you want to play against the best. So, subconsciously, you want to prove that you can play in that company.
‘And every player in that Leicester team would have done the same. Every player at Everton would have done the same.
‘So these guys have to play every week against teams who are raising the bar. Then I went to Celtic and got the flip side of that. Everyone came to Celtic Park to raise their game — and then they drop again.
‘We did that at Leicester. We would get a result at Old Trafford and then go and lose to, I don’t know, Fulham away because we can’t maintain it.
‘Whereas, when you are at a big club, you have to maintain it. Yes, you’re playing with better players. But you have to adapt your mentality. At a big club, you have to stay at the top.
‘And we are now the big fish in this pond. So we have to make sure we’re ready for all teams coming and raising their game. And you really have to feel it yourself.
‘Look, I’ve seen players go to the Old Firm and die. It takes a certain mentality to go and play for big clubs. And I respect all players who do it at big clubs, because they have to do it week in, week out — and they find ways to win.
‘That’s what we have to do here now. I think it’s a great opportunity, a challenge. I do think we’ve got enough players capable of that.
‘I think some of them already are in that mental state. What I want is for them to drag the others with them.
‘I want them to say: “Come on, let’s have a bit of this. If Dunfermline on Saturday are going to have a real go at us, let’s accept it and have a go back — take the game to them.”
‘That’s what we’re trying to breed here. From my own experiences, I had Martin O’Neill and Gordon Strachan, great managers, and I had good players around me who maintained those levels. And I had good players when I was Celtic manager who could do it as well.’
Lennon, who will have Dylan McGeouch fit and available for the trip to East End Park tomorrow — but is still waiting for paperwork on Israeli goalkeeper Ofir Marciano who was forced to pass an English test by immigration officials earlier this week — said he had specifically spoken to his players about showing a degree of consistency.
‘They are good playing against Premier teams — they get themselves up for that,’ he said. ‘I’m not saying they weren’t up for the Queen of the South game (Tuesday night’s 3-1 League Cup loss), because there was no evidence of that. No real complacency.
‘But there were lapses in concentration that maybe they wouldn’t make in other games.
‘We have to bring that intensity that we would bring to big games to every domestic, day-to-day, bread-and-butter game. If they do that, they’ll be fine.
‘When the psychology of the game changes, they need to learn to deal with a little bit of anxiety coming from the stands — or even coming from themselves — and overcome that quickly.
‘Now that we have developed or built an expectation level — off the back of winning the Scottish Cup for the first time in 100-odd years and selling so many season tickets — the players should embrace it. They should enjoy it rather than be wary of it.
‘This is a big club, you know, and they have to play like big players, develop that big-game mentality.
‘I’m not too sure that we’ve had that. But that’s what we’re trying to get. Now, I can’t just pass it on to them. But I can pass my experiences on.’