Neil Lennon

It was our 3rd time qualifying for last 16 WGS done it in 07 and 08

 

I should have said 2nd manager

 

The results have been good, the performances haven't been great.

If it was Moyes -for instance-who had taken charge and was delivering these performances I doubt very many on here would be wanting him made permanent manager.

If Rodgers had left in the summer, I doubt many (any?) on here would have been demanding Lenny as manager.

We're entering a crucial stage in the attempt at the ten. If the board invest properly in the squad (for once) we'll be untouchable. But will they make that investment for Lenny? They certainly didn't before.

 

So since the snake walked out leaving us massively in the lurch and 8 points clear in the league Lennon has won 4 out of 5 league games, increased our lead to 13 points, won at Easter Road in a cup game where Rodgers consistently struggled, kept 4 clean sheets in 6 matches and had an injury list as long as your arm to deal with. So he has done very well. He recognises we are turgid at times and is trying to change it a bit over time. Under the snake I lost count of the many games we won by the odd goal after a turgid match. Under the snake that made us champions, under Lennon it suddenly isn't good enough. Some people you can't please. Glad to see Marco Rose being lined up for Gladbach job though so won't have to listen to people touting his name when he is obviously set for a natural progression to the Bundesliga.

 

I just had a thought. I think, if Lennon is given the gig full time, we will see Brown retire early and take up an assistant role before we get to the 10 as he's potentially moulded into our next manager and he will take us to 20iar.

 

Think there’s literally zero chance of that happening. I think it’ll be Lennon, then Kennedy after the 10.

 

All joking aside, if it were Kennedy after the 10 I'd have Brown retire immediately.

 

The football has been bad, every game has been turned into something much harder than it should, even against the two worst spfl teams or a sub standard sevco or hearts with 10 men for two thirds of the game. The only decent team we played took points from us at home. The substitutions are nothing short of baffling and the Rodgers issues, such as defensive sloppiness and lack of tooth and objectivity in the front persist. Yes, results are good, but the european season is over and there is no pressure in an almost won league. I am not quite sure this will work

 

Radio interview from last night

 

We have struggled without our creative midfielders ,and are just starting to get game time again ,so cant blame the manager for the poor play in recent games ,but its also not as bad as some are making out .

 

As much as I disapprove of BR's behaviour - comparing him with Lennon is a joke. He did extremely well at Swansea and came very close to winning the EPL. He has a big reputation in football as a coach and particularly for bringing on/improving players.

If Neil was still at Hibs when BR left, I don't think Celtic would have approached Hibs and paid compensation to get him. It was fortunate for him (and us TBH) that he was available. However, he inherited an 8 point lead and a vastly better goal difference - any competent manger should be able to clinch the league from there.

The football has been as poor as I remembered (Aberdeen, Dundee, St Mirren, a lot of the 2nd half against Huns). No-one could doubt his passion for the club but his tactical ability is nowhere near the same level as BRs.

Also - this is a big summer for us. We will lose Boyota, Benkovic, Weah, Burke, Compper (hopefully), Toljan, Izzy. I'm not sure about keeping Sinclair and Ntcham.

Frankly, I'm not sure that I want Lennon in charge of a team rebuild (especially if John Park is not involved who I think had a lot to do with VVD, Wanyama).

I'm not keen on Moyes but I'd much rather a coach with a reasonable track record outside the SPL (or both). Lennons experience outside the EPL was a disaster and its no surprise that there was hardly a queue outside his door when he left Hibs.

Both the Club and football have moved on since Lennon's first tenure - we need a coach who can keep the club moving forward.

Any appointment is a gamble but at best we would stand still under Lennon - it's more likely that we will go backwards.

 

I think a lot of people are forgetting some of the * football we had to put up with under Rodgers. In his first season aye we played some great stuff but the majority of his second season and the first half of this season we were playing worse than we have been since Lenny took over. At least we are getting the results here. Did everyone else forget about the 2 draws at home to Murtys hun team, losing at Ibrox, going out to Athens in the qualifiers, our inability to take points off Kilmarnock, losing streak through in Edinburgh etc? It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows as much as Brendan was a great manager for us.

 

Interview with Celtic TV

 

This sums it up for me , nuff said

 

Fair enough - I don't think there will be a season like BRs first one again. I take your point that the football in the next 2.5 seasons was patchy at times. However, we have won 7 trophies in a row under BR and this title is more BRs than NLs.

NL's cup record was very patchy and all 3 league titles were won with either no huns or them having being docked a load of points.

I'm not surprised that BR went back to the EPL - its the way he did it that sours his legacy here.

I don't think we'll have to worry about NL being lured away by an EPL team - frankly - IMO he's not rated that highly - even after winning 3 titles here, the only job he could get was Bolton. As I pointed out, he wasn't fighting off the job offers when he left Hibs.

I have nothing but respect for NL's contribution to our club and his love for it. However, I just don't think being a real club man is a qualification for being a good manager.

Given our financial position and dominance in Scotland, we should be looking to make a statement as we did with BR. Frankly, appointing NL says that we are playing it cheap and going backwards.

 

Hasn't been ideal circumstances though, Tierney unfit, McGregor missed a couple, Christie and Rogic missed almost all the games, Ntcham fresh back from 3 months out. Mixing of CB's Jozo has had to play twice I think or 3 of the 6 games as Boyata missed 2, I think Benkovic has missed 4 or 5 of them.

He also came in with 2 games in the first like 4 days plus an International break. And 4 of the 6 games were Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen and the Huns.

Even now the split isn't really important and it would be wiser to mix the team about and keep guys fresh for the Cup games which are all that matter now so you can't really get a good look at what Lennon would really have done if he had a season or even half a season instead of 15 or so games.

 

If the poor football continues to the end of the season -and especially if we don't win the treble -we would be taking a massive risk offering the job to Lenny.

I still hope he can get us playing some great stuff soon, wins the treble and gets the job on merit.

 

The comparison is completely logical - they’ve both experienced managing Celtic. They’ve both been successful when managing Celtic. They’ll both fallen short in different areas of managing Celtic.

Yes, he inherited the club in a good position, but we had just been played off the park by our nearest rivals and were facing a difficult run of fixtures. He stepped in, and turned that 8 point gap into a 13 point gap and effectively sealed us the title. In more comfortable fashion than BR would’ve imo.

The point I really don’t get though is the reluctance to have him overseeing a team rebuild. He’s literary done it before - and was hugely successful in doing so. We can speculate all we like about who does what in terms of transfers, but the fact of the matter is - Lennon was manager during the largest rebuilding phase we’ve seen in recent years. His transfer record is imo peerless among Celtic managers in the post MON era.

 

I doubt we'll really play great football as the season is almost done.

I think a few of the games will be like the other night, where its an easy game for us as after the split a lot of players do down tools for the summer and are only interested in avoiding injury and go through the motions so we'll have a lot of the ball and space and time but at the same time our own players won't really have any interest of over exerting ourselves to put on a show either - we've already played 55 games this season, more games than probably 95% of teams in Europe will play in total and have 7 or 8 left.