Neil Lennon, Open Goal interview

A good watch.

 

Will never be able to forget what he did during that season. Find it hard to stomach him.

 

Uh-huh

 

The fact he still defends the Dubai trip is mental to me even at the time the majority thought it was a bad idea regardless of government permission or not.

 

Skipped to watch the COVID section.
Usual everyone else's fault, oh poor us attitude to it.

"Games were like bounce games" that's on you Lennon to not have allowed that mentality to set in.
"Players had gentleman agreements to leave and were annoyed" well yup, they would be, yet you still relied on them knowing they had mentally checked out.
"The rules kept changing, we was allowed to go, then the photo by the pool"
Everyone and their dug knew what the rules were gonna be a week or so before they changed during the entire COVID saga. No rule change was every randomly surprised on the population. we had all gotten wind of the bus rules before they happened. Foresight.
Much like Boris and his parties, the outrage wasn't just you went, but rather you signed off on it at a time everyone else couldn't do those things, then stupidly allowed a * picture to happen. Alright you can't stop someone taking the picture, but who in their right mind, when we was that poor in the season, would even allow that possibly to happen during * COVID. "Hey I know we are * and you fans all need to stay indoors, but check us out"

It's yet again, still the continued refusal to take responsibility at all for that season.


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Looking back now, it was a mental time right enough. He's right, no crowds changed the whole dynamic especially for celtic and probably helped the huns. He's also right to mention certain players downed tools, which they did.

The trips etc shouldn't have happened, but easy to criticise in hindsight. Seem to mind some decisions were strange as well with players being suspended through covid rules, but huns werent. Bottom line though is the huns went through the season unbeaten, was always going to be hard to beat that.

 

Covid season was rigged to * no matter how * we were. Was it not the case that every team ended up with loads of players isolating except the huns, that just happened to use a lab in NI to do their tests ?

But aye, if players were wanting away and not performing you shouldn't be playing them. Same goes for guys that were treating games like friendlies.

Not listened to it, just going on the comments by @Peej

 

I'm perhaps not the most forgiving or rational person when it comes to Lennon and the COVID season to be fair

Absolutely disgusted with that season and how the club handled it and how some folk (Lennon) still try to defend it.

Many a reason we was *, I can accept COVID didn't help us where it did help the Huns in keeping the fan noise away from them.

Bit we are Celtic, biggest professional club in the country, as much as they can play a part, for me it is someone's job to ensure those things are limited as much as possible in respect to how we squad is impacted.

If Lennon, for once, could just say "yeah we * up and didn't adapt to the situations right. The Dubai trip was selfish and we read the room wrong. Sorry for my part in the season" and not the trundle down a "it's the govt fault. It's the fans fault" *, then I'd be more forgiving to him.
But we are now 4 seasons down the line and he still can't taken a shred of responsibility for it.

The calling the fans entitled and demonising the fans when there was protests was the final straw for me though.


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* right it was, the Gregor Smith dad had a GP surgery in Larkhall and the huns getting to use less buses and then when players caught it was only the youth players, sending tests to Belfast, Helander only first team player with a positive test and that was on international duty...

 

Im totally over the covid season stuff.

It was an awful season under extraordinary circumstances and aye, he's never really accepted blame for it but he's given so much ti the club outside of that it seems daft to hold a grudge.

We as fans didn't cover ourselves in glory that season either.

 

Also, the whole Hun thing and their miraculous ability not to be affected by COVID at all is nothing short of them cheating.

We all knew it during the time as well (not initially but near the end of that season), that they were the only ones(?) using a lab out with Scotland/England and weirdly was in northern Ireland.
The only club that never ran foul of the social distance rules or had anyone at all made to isolate and thus not able to play a game.

They 100% got away with some dodgy * that year, wouldn't be surprised if the sfa (and the govt in turn, much like UEFA), just took their word for things and no one thought to dig in to their * at all.

No chance they was that squeaky clean.

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I wouldn't say I was over it as such, the season yes but the fact he won't take responsibility annoys me somewhat.

However compared to what he gave us a player and what he went through to manage us far outweighs any negative feelings I might have.

A bona fide legend.

 

I honestly thought he copped more of the COVID season than his fair share.

The players did down tools because a good portion of them wanted away at the start of the season. And that's on the club as much as them or Lennon. The board wanted to hold onto a winning team for 10IAR and didn't appreciate what denying multiple players a move would do to morale. That was the biggest issue for me that cost us the season.

And as for the Dubai trip, it was poor judgment but again the board signed off on it. We can't whinge about the Huns cheating lab tests either. They gamed the system and we were naive enough to follow the rules to the letter. Again, that's on the club.

Where he holds blame in my view is in his lack of discipline upon the team. We had players breaking lockdown to run off to Spain. He'd come out every game and say the players weren't trying a * - which they weren't - but he couldn't seem to find any kind of a solution to it. He was just clueless in interviews as if being demotivated was an alien concept to him. That's what comes of being their pal and organising *-ups before big matches etc. Ange gets lambasted for not bothering with man management but no * would have disrespected him in the same way those players took the * out of Lennon.

I know the issue for some is that he never took accountability for the season and just blamed the fans for how they reacted. But at the end of the day, what's he supposed to say - it was all my fault and I'm not a very good manager? He's going to defend his record so he can work again. We flung a lot of * at him, he flung some back. I wasn't happy at the time but in hindsight he just couldn't hack it and tried to deflect, which is a fairly human response.

 

We can simultaneously say that he made a lot of mistakes and was one of the major reasons why we didn't win 10 in a row and also say that the negativity he gets from some fans is out of order.

He's a winner, a serial winner. He thought he could turn it round and he felt as if he deserved that opportunity and time to do so. If it was anyone else, we'd have given them the time but there was so much negativity surrounding his permanent appointment that some fans were just waiting for failure. We are seeing this now with Brendan, some fans can't * wait to stick the boot in because they don't like the fact he left the way he did.

No doubt in my mind that certain players chucked it and we know the issues that causes. The club should have taken the decision out of his hand long before they did, as well. He should have been punted weeks before. Not only that, this was the guys job. Yes, he was getting paid handsomely and he would have made plenty of money from his playing days but he wasn't going to walk away from the club without some sort of * deal. He had a family at home who needed support. 'Oh if he loved the club he would have walked away for free'... bullshit. * bullshit. The guy was attacked on the touchline at Tynecastle, sent bullets in the post from loyalists, targeted every single place he went and the one thing that kept him going was his love for the club and the loyalty the fans showed him.

Does he take enough of the blame, even now? Probably not. Even if he did, it still wouldn't be good enough for some. It never will be. As for the whole interview itself, it was a * great couple of hours. Really enjoyed listening to him in that setting. Chilled out, bit of a laugh and laid back. Great interview.

We also let ourselves down that year. If some can't forgive him given what he has endured to make this club successful, it's a really disappointing end to his association with the club. The guy should be lauded every time he gets anywhere near the club.

A legend. Absolute legend.

 

I'm the same. Huns still go on about it but to me it's in the past and with the amount of success we've had before and after, it isn't that big a deal. Obviously winning 10iar would have been great but we've surpassed that now with our total trophy haul anyway.

 

This for me too. Passion for the club rips out him when speaks about his time here.