Neil Lennon

Talking of weight what I'm more interested in doing is getting our team to punch above our weight. Something Lenny had done previously and where Rodgers failed miserably. Beating inferior teams was more Rodgers forte in his time at Celtic.

For me when the huns died it was all about how we measured up in Europe the only arena where we can face our peers or betters. If Lenny can make us competitive in Eurpoe again it will certainly tick a big box in my book.

CL last 16>>>>> Domestic cup

 

After successfully reaching the last 16 the previous year the board decided to downsize and sell our best player.

I wonder how the wage bill would compare between Lennys team that conceded 14 and Rodgers team that conceded 18

 

Neil Cameron: Celtic have played a blinder over Brendan Rodgers

IT seems that Celtic have played the Brendan Rodgers situation with the perfection of a Paul McStay pass.


A hospital ball, to borrow a well-worn football phrase, was controlled and then defeat turned into an unlikely victory.

Last month, Celtic had an unhappy but extremely well-paid manager with expensive tastes who was, in all likelihood, going to leave in the summer no matter how this season panned out.

Had Rodgers won another treble and left after the Scottish Cup final in May – his reason being that he’d taken the team as far as he could – Celtic supporters, every last man, woman and child, would have blamed the board for their lack of ambition. Chief executive Peter Lawwell in particular would have been the bad guy.

Not only that, but a replacement would have to be found for Rodgers, a Celtic icon who had delivered history three years in a row. Finding such a man would be no mean feat. Who would be available? Who would want to follow in those footsteps? Could they afford to pay for a manager in a job who might be able to take the team further in terms of Europe?


“How can you improve on a triple treble?” asked one interested observer only last month. “Win the Champions League!”

Incidentally, that was Neil Lennon.

This was a week at best before Rodgers agitated for his move to Leicester once they became the first English Premier League club to express concrete interest in his services. It quickly became clear that this deal was happening right away. There was no chance of him seeing out this campaign.

That’s when the call went out to Lennon late on the Monday night of February 25. From those incredible days of uncertainty, Celtic emerged as winners.

The Scottish champions will receive a staggering £9m – the record fee spent on Odsonne Edouard – for Rodgers and his backroom staff. Lennon has now taken the team 10 points clear with just eight games to go – the title is won - and they are in the Scottish Cup semi-final.

As for Rodgers, he is the traitor who, at least for the moment, is viewed as a conman who pretended that Celtic was his dream job when it never was. Time will heal the wounds but there are players far from happy with the way all of this went down. “The show goes on," said one.

Celtic, we revealed today, will exceed their yearly financial targets because of the financial package coming their way from Leicester with the best part of £39m in the current account. The board come out of it smelling of roses and, back on the park, the treble is very much on.

Not only has that but the 'sale' of Rodgers, for want of a better word, meant the club has broken even on someone who by a distance was the club’s best-paid manager.

We understand that when Rodgers’s wage was added together with the beautiful house in a posh suburb of Glasgow and smart car Celtic provided to him, the 46-year-old was earning just under £3m a year for the past two-and-a-half years. And when you add bonuses to that number, that’s not far under the £9m Leicester paid for his and his staff's services.

Chris Davies, Kolo Toure and Glenn Driscoll would hardly have been on the liveable wage either. And the savings don’t stop there.

Rodgers’s fondness for taking the first-team to Dubai every year did not go down well with everyone at Celtic Park. Winter breaks cost serious money given how many made the journey to the UAE and the quality of hotel.

Oh, and while Lennon and Lawwell previously disagreed on Celtic being taken all over the world during pre-season, something Rodgers never had to do, those money-making, brand-strengthening visits to the United States could be back next summer.

Lennon’s wage will not come close to what Rodgers was on, even if he agrees a long-term deal. He didn’t cost a penny to hire, already has a home in Glasgow and wants to be at the club. That’s a treble win right there for you.

History will be kinder to Rodgers than the present is. Two trebles, the architect of perhaps a third in a row, seven trophies out of seven, winning every cup tie, the Invincibles season, and that 69-game unbeaten run which was the longest such stretch in 100 years of British football.

However, as things stand, Celtic are richer than ever, no longer have the uncertainty over their manager and the last-gasp wins over Hearts and Dundee all-but sealed eight in a row.

Even for those fans who despair at their club boasting about cash flows and profit, they have to admit that Celtic have done some superb business.

 

Probably considering half the folk already said Lennon would take over after him.

 

Course he would , as for me there's nobody that sticks out to go for like Rodgers did ,and with his record before he would be considered.

 

Nope not a chance in my opinion. If Lennon would have not had another job and was just waiting for a role we would be looking for other managers.

I love Lennon I’ve said it before and I will say it again I don’t want him further than the summer.

I think we need a better manager in like Rose and this will show real ambition, but like I’ve said before Lawwell will appoint Lennon on a rolling one year contract and the fans will not say a word.

Massive wages saved with the compo from Rodgers and Lennon will be on similar money he was on before if not less cause he will have to prove himself again

He is the cheap option and he will be here at the start of the qualifying campaign for Europe. That’s the only plus having him in place for that.

Lawwell was say if it doesn’t work out with Lennon next season oh well I gave you Lennon who you all wanted while downgrading again and it will not cost loads in wages.

 

Of course he would, most fans thought he would be back at some point, just not under these circumstances.

 

Those paragraphs gave me serious chills.

No matter how appallingly the Snake behaved, the reality is, our board still don't come out of this well at all.

I remember Brown saying way back in the Invincible season that the winter breaks to Dubai were excellent for the players - the whole thing was really professional and allowed the coaches to get the balance right between a mid-season rest and some light-medium training which set them up for the second half of the season.

Seems Rodgers' standards did go some way to optimizing the performances from this squad of players.

Now Peter and Co. want to strip it back to the cheap option. No wonder we're regressing at an alarming rate.

 

Rodgers had a track record and had time off having stepped out of one of the highest jobs in England , its all about timing too i dont see anyone like that other than Mourinho but i'm still even iffy on him with regards to some of his football and whether his best days are gone in management..moyes,martinez and rose dont excite me.

 

Add to that the £9m we got for Rodgers we should have already got for Boyata and invested at least some of it in a quality CB who would have a year with us under his belt before the CL qualifiers. In reality he already cost us that £9m we got for him and his cronies

 

Rose is as good as we will get...salzburg are streets ahead of us on the pitch.

We will go backwards with lenny permanent

 

Rodgers hasn’t really built though has he? If anything he has got the absolute best out of a Ronny Deila side.

 

He's only ever managed in austria and never been in the champions league.

 

Whatever he’s built, Lenny was in awe of the footballing operation and the changes made to Lennoxtown since his time there. It can’t be denied that Rodgers was a perfectionist in terms of preparation, sports science etc...

He has also improved the players, so aye improving Ronny’s team and making it unrecognisable is something to build on too..

Rodgers also built a reputation of developing young attacking talent, would the likes of Dembele, Edouard, Ntcham, Weah all rush to work under Lenny, I’m not so sure.

We are a big draw regardless a club but Rodgers profile definitely helped attract talent. Maybe we need that kind of profile, maybe not as with big profiles comes big egos.. and humility is important too.

I'm unsure, but there’s no point denying Lenny is a downgrade on Rodgers, even if he is a *.

 

I’m counting on Lenny taking us backwards tbh, back to a time we weren’t expecting to be pumped every game in Europe.

 

Aye I get all that, but he still couldn’t fix a defence and crucial positions in his two and a half years, and I’m sick of mentioning his egotistical stance in European games which were an embarrassment at times. The guy is the new emperors clothes imo.

 

He has left us in a strong position though, financially and in terms of silverware..

Hopefully Lenny can utilise all the tools left at his disposal and this is where Kennedy can prove important and in ideal scenario Lenny makes us more flexible tactically as well as building on the good things left by Rodgers..

If he gets the results and performance levels improve, I’d back him 100% and he should get the job.

But, I’m not sure we’ll progress as much as we could under him.. in saying that there’s risk and lots of it in with any appointment.

 

Progress where though just domestically? Aye we are in a great position for the triple treble, but the rat tried to gut our entire backroom staff when leaving. Aye the board can be scrutinised at times, but he has pushed our wage bill up to unsustainable levels on some amount of *. Quality over quantity though, if Lennon gets it and Park returns then maybe we might start looking further than England for players again and find a CB and RB.