Neil Lennon

Mark Viduka was a cracking player..what's the point?

 

I agree with Lennon and would have him as full time manager.

People need to get real, yes there have been a couple of poor performances but there were plenty under the messiah this season before he disappeared. Is that lennons fault? Not for me, he's doing the best he can do in some very difficult circumstances. I think the media and fans vastly underestimate how much of an impact rodgers leaving will have had on the club.

Lennon has come in and kept the club ticking over - we're still on for a treble, treble after all and the man won his first two games away to hearts and hibs....venues rodgers struggled to get results in every season he was here.

Is the football of the same standard as brendans first season? Of course it isn't...just like it wasn't under brendan before he left.

 

Walking into a job 13 points clear of your closest rivals, and having the best and most expensive squad by far in the entire country is hardly even remotely as what can be described as "very difficult circumstances"...

 

Point is your clubs dead.

 

We weren’t 13 clear, we had massive games that week, no staff, a team shot to bit with injuries, rumours of infighting in the dressing room all season and a team that was dead on its feet due to the last manager giving no * and running our players into the ground.

Difficult circumstances I think. Manageable but difficult.

 

Interesting...

johnjamessite.com


Moneyball at Celtic
Imagine awaking on the morning of 20th May 2016 to a small Jiffy bag containing the key to a Rolls-Royce. There is no card. As you hasten to a window expecting to see your friends behind a hedge, operating a toy car, you are astonished to find a gleaming green Rolls-Royce Dawn. As you step outside in your pyjamas and slippers you find that the key in your hand can open the car remotely. As you settle comfortably into the driver’s seat your attention is drawn to an insurance policy in your name which extends to 20 May 2021.


Your wife insists that you sell it. You demur. She tries her luck with the number plate, BR 10, but you are having none of it. You follow Celtic all over Scotland and every time you drive to a game in your Rolls-Royce of a weekend, Celtic don’t lose. The car is your lucky charm. On the fourth of November 2017 Celtic surpass their 100 years old record by completing 63 domestic games undefeated. This invincible run extends for six more games prior to a resounding reverse at Tynecastle. One is philosophical about it and looks forward to securing an unprecedented successive Treble of domestic trophies. A league Cup is secured in 2018 and despite some patchy performances you remind yourself that:

In Brendan We Trust
As you draw back the curtains on the 26 February of this year your pride and joy is gone. You call the police. They laugh at you and refer you to Celtic Park. A few days later another Jiffy bag arrives. Inside are the keys to a second hand Ford Escort. As you dress and go outside you are confronted with a car that is nine years old, registration NL10 NOT. When you start the ignition blue smoke emits from the exhaust. You look for your friends behind the garden hedge but they are not behind this prank.

I digress, when Neil Lennon attended his first press conference he compared himself to Walter Swinburn riding Shergar. There was no need for the whip. He was easing this thoroughbred home with hands and heels.

However the reality is that the players are far from impressed with him. My impeccable source has also apprised me of the fact that Stevie Woods, the goalkeeping coach, has been identified as the source of the leaked team sheets, one of which found its way to your humble correspondent. Suffice to say Mr. Lennon can see the woods and the trees.


Celtic are a shambles behind the scenes. To say that Lennon has lost the dressing room would be inaccurate. Lennon has never had it in the first instance.


The players are not playing for him. My source insists that Lennon knows that he does not have their confidence.


Izaguirre, Brown, Lustig, McGregor, Rogic and Forrest who worked with him during his initial four years stint as a rookie manager are being given preferential treatment. They have noticed that their Roll-Royce has been replaced with an Escort but they are getting on with the job at hand. The remainder of the squad know that they have been sold a pup.

I realise that this is disturbing news for Celtic supporters, but they deserve the truth. I make no secret of the fact that should Celtic reappoint Mr. Lennon, nine-in-a-row could be in jeopardy.

When Morelos was dismissed following his assault on Scott Brown on the 31st March, his second of the season, the Ibrox Intern’s game plan was in tatters. This game plan is simple to understand. They close down Celtic’s midfield and allocate two players to defend each flank. They know that Celtic will try to retain possession. This does not concern them as they know Celtic will pass the ball backwards and sideways when challenged. Celtic don’t have the steel to win the battle in midfield. Celtic cannot play through the middle or the flanks. This model worked on the 29th December and on Sunday 12th May.

Had this model worked on the 31st March both Glasgow clubs would be on 81 points, with a goal difference of 56, with one game to play.

Had Morelos not behaved like a headless chicken we could be on the cusp of another Helicopter Sunday.
Whether by accident or design the new club have finished strongly since pushing Arfield forward and starting with Defoe. Six games have been won. I anticipate seven on Sunday.
Last time I checked my name was not Cassandra, but there are cracks at Lennoxtown that are being papered over by thoughts of a triple treble.

Ian Bankier’s statement in regard to the playing squad was an exercise in spin. Bayo is not the question never mind the answer. When his former club thanked Celtic for procuring his services I suspected that the Moneyball was getting out of hand.

There can be little doubt that the Celtic executives are engaging in Moneyball. When the price of their best assets is high in a market inflated by English football’s broadcasting revenue, they sell.

They replaced Dembele with a £2m punt on Bayo. The PR machine goes into action. We are told that none other than Lubo Moracvic rates him highly, despite the fact that he has only played for 15 minutes in two games for The Ivory Coast in 2018 and is no longer in their squad.
If they sell Forrest, replacing him with Shved, no-one should be surprised.

This is a flawed business model. The problem is that as their bank balance swells and they deliver on their KPI viz shareholder value, they are going back to the pack.

The new club is good enough to win the title next year and if one thinks that the referees have been biased this season it will pale to insignificance when they cheat, primarily at Ibrox, next season. As we saw with Clancy, he would not make a game-changing decision at Ibrox. Flanagan was cited by Whyte and will receive a retrospective ban but what would have happened had he broken Brown’s jaw and the Celtic captain had to retire? Clancy’s yellow card was an appalling decision. When push came to shove he remembered that he was a Freemason and should act accordingly in the citadel of hatred.

If Celtic replace a Rolls-Royce with a second hand Escort their Moneyball will come unstuck. Celtic fans will have to get accustomed to watching games through the fingers of their hands, not counting them off to ten.

 

Strange for Lennon to turn on the fans like that.
Don’t know what “new breed” he’s talking about and don’t know what the bad times of the 90’s have to do with the current situation.
I can clearly remember how * things were in the 90’s but we’re in a completely different position now.
Just because we were * over 20 years ago doesn’t mean we should all be grateful to have Lenny as our manager now. * is he talking about?

 

Well, not really.

Wouldn't be the first time he's flapped his gub at fans...

 

Sorry, however many points it was we were ahead the point still stands we were well ahead by that point. It's under Lennon we've went from 13 points above the huns to......what....6?

Aye ok, manager had just * off, all the other bits you spoke about there but ffs! It's the champions and current league leaders he walked intae.

Granted going to Edinburgh twice in the same week isn't exactly what you'd want walking in the door, but he had all the tools necessary to win it, which he did.

Hardly as if he walked in the door and we were 5 points off relegation or something. Now THAT'S what I would call difficult.

 

No idea how credible that is but I have no problem believing that a lot of the players aren’t keen on him.

He’s just the polar opposite of Rodgers. Well, that’s certainly what it seems anyway.

 

I actually think he never meant that in the way that it was taken. He has to watch how he says things as everyone is hanging on his every word. I think he meant the fans who never went through the 90's haven't lived long enough to appreciate the difficult times.

 

No doubt that a lot of our players aren’t keen on Lennon but the Rolls Royce/ Ford Escort patter is * and insulting to Lennon.
I don’t want him to be our next manager but there’s no need to mock him like that.

 

Really dislike those comments. Playing up to the "Ad start Griff over Dembele! A hate fancy fitba!" type of supporter with comments like that.

* that, and I was delighted when he first came back. Don't want him getting the gig at all now. I'll ignore this in future tbh and always remember the glory years under him, but time has truly passed now.

 

Might be a bit exaggerated, but it's a perfectly logical retort.

 

In saying new breed of fans I reckon he's meant that all they've ever known is the success and have come to expect it. Honestly I think people are misconstruing what he's saying. Old grudges are rumbling below the surface here. I don't know whether he's the right man for the job or not. I'm inclined to give him a season but it's not up to me. He is a winner and that loss against Sevco will have really hurt him as will the knowledge that we don't seem to want him to get the job. Are we going to get better really? I don't think so. Any manager outside Scotland only needs to phone BR to find out what went wrong and I can't imagine too many of them will want to take it on. We're in a mess just now. We have a handful of decent players and most of the others we could do without. I don't think it matters who takes on the job as a rebuild is going to hurt us. We need to sign a few who're going to hit the ground running.

 

Precisely.

 

Only read a couple of pieces by this John James character, but by * that piece is a pile of pointless pish.


Summed up - Celtic lost a high end manager, replaced with average manager that may get the job done, if not in a grand way.

And to title it "Moneyball at Celtic", think he dedicated all of 2 lines to the actual theory of "Moneyball" in relation to Celtic. And at that, I'm not entirely sure he gets what the Moneyball theory actually is. It isn't just buy low, sell high. It's about scouting for the player that is undervalued - perhaps isn't the full package to the big glamour teams - but you can get cheap and get them to do the one (or two) things you need them to do specifically, good. Take Rogic as an example, he would be undervalued by the bigger clubs because his pace and fitness levels aren't up there, so we are able to pick him up for a cheaper price, snag him early etc. We use him to great effect. The fact that we may make money off him, isn't the principle of Moneyball, it's the idea of getting someone in who is undervalued, but performs to your specific need. You then find 11 players who can all do their one job for you team as perfectly as you can, and you get a winning side. You don't neccesarily have great rounded players, but the team in the moment makes a good side.