Neil Lennon

Lenny stated that Hammond has had to RESTRUCTURE the whole Recruitment Dept.

The media have not asked him any questions about this which i find quite surprising. Why was such a drastic overhaul needed in the first place and who was responsible for letting things get so bad. Surely there has to be some oversight at a higher level.

I'm not complaining about the restructuring but it is certainly a topic i would have questioned if i was working in journalism.

 

Rodgers and Congerton.

 

Because it’s well known what Rodgers and Congerton done to our established scouting system.

 

Yeah congerton may have been in charge but surely the directors oversee the running in some capacity

 

It may be well known to some but can you elaborate on what exactly it is they done to the scouting system as i have not seen anything published.

 

NEIL LENNON reckons Celtic have coped with the sound of silence as well as anyone.

The Hoops boss insists crazy results in England’s empty stadiums recently are no coincidence.


Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City have all been on the end of shock heavy defeats.

Celtic have taken stick for their performances, but Lenny insists they deserve praise for adapting to the conditions.





And the Parkhead gaffer insists it’s no mean feat to win eight successive games amid the fan lockout.

He said: “There is far more to come in terms of level of performance, but the squad has played very well.


“I do still think the lack of supporters in the stadium doesn’t help at times with the intensity of the play.

“You can see that with other results around Europe. You look at Liverpool, Manchester United and Man City.


We have been consistent in our results and we’ve adapted as well as anybody to it.

“They can play better, but if there is an atmosphere, subconsciously you are just on point more.

“Having no fans can affect performances, but they have handled it very well, as well as anybody.

“They have done remarkably well. I don’t know how I would have dealt with it. I thrived on the atmosphere, on the crowd and some players are really like that.


That is missing just now, but we are still winning games and winning well.
“We’ve had four clean sheets as well, which has been overlooked.




We have tidied up defensively and I can’t ask the players for any more than what they are giving me.”

Many of Celtic’s players are scattered all over Europe on international duty.

On their return, two of the season’s biggest games loom as Rangers and AC Milan visit Parkhead.

During normal times, there would be 60,000 crowds and raucous atmospheres at both.

This time, though, there will be nobody in the stadium apart from the teams, officials and media.

It will be strange for everyone involved, but Lennon will get in the heads of his stars next week to prepare.

He said: “We will work with the players as best we can to deal with that and prepping them as best we can.

“They are amazing games to play in, so we have to adjust without supporters as best we can.

“A lot has to come from self-motivation. You try and get them to adapt to the circumstances as best as possible.

It is new to everyone and all coaches and managers are going through the same thing. I’ll be delighted if and when we can get supporters back into the stadium.

“It would be a huge help to have the supporters here.

“But the players have done brilliantly with what they have had to deal with and I can’t ask any more of them.”

All the spotlight is on next Saturday’s Old Firm derby, but Lennon is also looking forward to the Milan test.


The Italian giants will bring the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Glasgow for the Europa League tie.

Celtic’s Champions League bid failed early, but Lennon insists credit is due for the way they bounced back.

He said: “They have shown remarkable consistency.

“We were disappointed with the Ferencvaros result. We dominated and could and should have won it.


But the response was magnificent and I am thrilled with their mentality.

“There has been a lot of work done between qualifiers and in between travelling to Sarajevo and Riga.

“My backroom team have done amazing work with the players and the preparations.”

 

We havent conceded for the past 4 games, so we must have tightened up a bit surely....the huns creamed themselves over clean sheets (ironic) so a wee bit of credit when its due, we havent been free scoring, but we have controlled the games and won them. Next week is the big test and i can see Lenny and the team coming through it with flying colours.

 

Lets not go off topic of the bad lenny script that everyone seems to be reading from

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I just can't get the image of that hand-scribbled note with crazy targets out of my head. Congerton was head of recruitment for more than 2 years. Bad management can do a lot of damage in that time.

As for the details, I'm glad we've kept that in house TBH. But it was an open secret that he had dismantled the old network. You can find tons of posts on here towards the end of Brendan Rodgers' time here.

 

Exactly.. big test against the huns next week.. they have a far more attacking threat than all of the teams we have played recently, see how the defensive copes with that..

 

Previous to Rodgers we had a developed scouting system, see comments made by Peter Houston on what it used to be like.

Rodgers came in and basically brought his own team in, with that meant not only did a lot of stuff such as the scouting system get tore up, but it also meant that when the * walked out, he took a lot of it with him - well the staff involved.
It is no secret how * poor Congerton was and is as a head of recruitment, but the damage done during those years was more than just * poor player recruitment, but it meant the entire system basically had to start from scratch again.
It's taken us all of last season and the work of Hammond to basically get us to this stage now, where we have signed Barkas and Ajeti - two fine players at a fair cost - and the on going chase of Turnbull. Have we stepped up a notch in recruitment of 22-23 year olds at the £5mill mark for big profit later compared to the 19 year olds? Who knows at this junction with the Ten on the line.

But we do know that is Hammond is here as a Celtic head, not as a sidekick to the manager. And I believe the plan going forward even with coaches is that we create a Celtic pool of staffing talent and any future manager will come in to work with OUR setup and not what happened with Rodgers.

Bayern work on a similar setup, we will be doing it around 3 levels below that.

 

Are people actually debating Lennon's recruitment policy?

He's * light years ahead of the snake when it comes to spotting a player.

* LIGHT YEARS

 

Ripped it up to start again, didn’t establish a new one. By the time Lenny came in we’d went from a network of around 50 odd scouts, official and unofficial to about 3 with no system in place at all. Ripped up the network that was established by John Park and to a lesser extent Lenny in Tony Mowbray’s season That got us the likes of Wanyama and Van Dijk.

 

This summer is the first really good window i can remember since Rodgers' first season. We're still playing catch up from the damage Congerton's appointment caused even now IMHO.

 

Funny enough, Rodgers first season was in the original system we had and the likes of Dembele was already being worked on for the last 6 months. Major difference.

 

Exactly what I had in mind, mate. Sinclair and Toure were obviously his, but everyone else was the old system at work.

 

Is this Neil Lennons biggest test as manager when you consider all the possible line ups that could be fielded. Depending on who is available even the formation is debatable. A lot of decisions to made all over the pitch.

Lenny's biggest test?

 

Naw