Neil Lennon

Head le ball!

Les minerals.

Etc.

 

Had a friend who worked in a wee man's pub up on Great Western Road. Was a guy in there who applied for all the big managerial positions.

Had letters from Barcelona, Inter, Boca Juniors, and loads others.

Probably get short listed before Lennon for the Marseille gig.

 

Offered to Marseille by who? Himself?

 

Shocked I thee. Shocked!

 

Never mind ten in a row - Neil Lennon believes that Celtic would be attempting to win a 13th consecutive Premiership title next season if it hadn’t been for the coronavirus.

He argues that the pandemic achieved what their opponents had previously failed to do, leaving them vulnerable and underlining former manager Jock Stein’s opinion that without fans, football is nothing.

The defending champions were the bookies’ favourites to set a new record by becoming champions for a tenth successive year in the summer of 2020.
Instead they ended up without any silverware for the first time in a decade.


Lennon, who turned 52 yesterday, is convinced that the government’s ban on spectators attending matches was the biggest single factor in his side’s fall from grace that season.

Immediately before SPFL clubs voted in March 2020 to end the campaign while there were eight Premiership fixtures still to play, Rangers captain James Tavernier had confessed in his programme notes that he and his colleagues couldn’t always cope with the pressure of playing in front of their support.



Lennon, meanwhile, claims that Celtic struggled to deal with the absence of their fans, whose passionate backing had frequently drove them on in the past.

“The previous season had been ended early 48 hours before we were due to play Rangers at Ibrox on St Patrick’s Day,” he recalled.

“We were 13 points clear of them with eight games left and they’d just lost at home to Hamilton Accies and been beaten twice by Hearts, the two clubs at the bottom of the table.

“Rangers had lost at home to Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League on the Thursday night and our derby was postponed on the Friday. It was incredibly frustrating.

“We were desperate to play them because we’d won 11 and drawn one of our 12 domestic games that year. We’d already won the League Cup and we were in the last four of the Scottish Cup, about to complete another treble.



At the time we were flying - absolutely rampant. Then all of a sudden everything was shut down for five months.”

Rangers won 2-0 at Parkhead in October to move four points ahead of the Hoops, kicking off a sequence where Celtic won only one of eleven matches as they failed to rediscover the swagger and belief which had seen them dominate for a decade.

“When we eventually came back we were flat and we never got our mojo back after that,” said Lennon.

“Once we returned to action in front of empty stands it was okay for the first few games because it was just great to be back playing again but it didn’t seem real after a while.

“As professionals, you want to play in front of full houses and, without crowds, the novelty soon wore off.

“It was like playing pre-season friendlies over and over again – and the fake crowd noise they used to play over the tannoy during games did my head in.

“Of course, life in general wasn’t the same that year. Everyone – except for some politicians - was confined to their homes and couldn’t mix with anyone else.

“Training had to include social distancing and I remember going to Easter Road for a game and we weren’t even allowed into the away dressing room.

“We had to change under a stand and sit on plastic chairs in the freezing cold – it was like being back playing for your school team again.

“There were also problems with contracts and players who wanted away and

“Listen, I take responsibility for what happened that season but everyone was pretending that everything was normal and it quite clearly wasn’t.”

 

That must be a world record that was at least 2 weeks he wasn't in the paper speaking about covid

 

He really needs to let it go.

 

Still find it mad how Lennon believes we were the only club affected by covid.

 

“We never got our mojo back”

That’s about the extent of his tactical flexibility.

 

He’s right that the huns were losing left, right and centre and Gerrard was on the verge of the sack.
The Covid break definitely gave them time to regroup and think they did benefit from having no rabid huns screaming abuse at them from the stands.
Having said that, Lennon wasn’t the man for the job and was clueless when things started to go wrong.
He’d be best to forget about it now.

 

“Listen I take responsibility” after waffling pages of * blaming a worldwide pandemic which effected pretty much everyone. Funny way of taking responsibility.

Give it a rest Neil..

 

This for me.

Worth remembering though, if Gerrard had been sacked then Lennon might've came up against a decent manager the next season, at a time when some of our best players wanted away - even without covid.

Lawwell was still in charge so there's no chance we would've had any sort of 'plan' for that scenario. It would've been the usual - force them to stay for the UCL qualifiers and panic when we get knocked out.

All I mean to say here is despite winning the treble and playing decent football at the time, there was a big challenge coming and this club wasn't equipped to deal with it like we are now. Lennon / Lawwell might've snuck the 10 but they were both finished in the game and we would've seen years of stagnation.

The protestors and the fans got a lot of stick at the time but in my view they have been 100% justified. The new approach to manager appointments and player recruitment is markedly different from the Lawwell era and it's a huge success. We've been crying out for this for about a decade.

 

* bless Neil Lennon

 

Even * is probably fed up hearing Lennon going on about the covid season by now same as every other *.

 

That must quite literally be the first time he's said "I take responsibility"
It's so unusual, I don't actually believe this article is Neil Lennon at all.


Sent from my M2012K11AG using Tapatalk

 

Wasn't so much coronavirus anymore than it was Lennon’s refusal to do any pre or post match analysis and tactical preparation.

 

It was obvious it was all the rules, and he couldn't handle it. Celtic being held to a different standard than some other clubs with bus travel, players treated differently when breaking any stupid rules, cancelling our games. All while another club gets congratulated for breaking rules. The hypocrisy was clear to see. Stopping nearly 18? Of our players playing because 1 was positive when all others got tested negative. Alot of new signings he was able to bond with and gel together because of distancing rules that we followed and other clubs never. It's understandable the team and lennon absolutely collapsed. He mentally couldn't handle it and is angry still, and doesn't blame himself but the goverment and all those stupid rules.

He handled it worse than anyone in football imo, and I'm coming round to understanding why. So if he comes round to admitting it, then I'll come round to some form of forgiveness.

 

Well that puts that to bed

back to covid in the morning


Neil Lennon has laughed off suggestions that he has a "burner" account on social media.

Celtic fans have long theorised that the Northern Irishman runs an account on Twitter defending his record as boss towards any critics who perhaps had grown tired of his management back before he left. The account, Siamese Bhoy, has written in their bio: "Celtic supporter. Not Neil Lennon."


And after Go Radio host Paul Cooney was asked by a listener to put the question to the Northern Irishman on air, Lenny had a chuckle at the notion. "What?!" he posed. Cooney then mentioned Siamese Bhoy to which, again, Lennon scoffed




I've got a Siamese cat! But I don't have anything to do with social media at all.




I gave it all up a long time ago and am happier for it.

"I don't have Instagram or anything, I've got no time for it."