Will/is Neil Lennon as good as Gordon Strachan at Celtic.

Erm............no.

Nakamura signed for Celtic in the summer of 2005 and Artur Boruc signed permanently for Celtic in October 2005. Stan Petrov didn't leave Celtic till August 2006.

So the sale of Petrov had nothing to do with the signings of Nakamura and Boruc.

 

Lennon resurrected us. We were down and out after the shambles of the Mowbray era and Lennon has brought us back to the Champions League group stages within what... 2/3 years? Brilliant stuff.

 

I enjoy the football Lenny's got the team playing,I feel he's growing into the roll with each passing day but excuse me for stating the obvious....sometimes his temperment can get in the way of him being a better manager..It's a learning curve, but for Lenny to earn the label of "great Celtic manager" very much depends on how he manages himself and of course the success rate of his teams.
To my mind,comparing him with WGS(whom i have the utmost respect for ) is a bit premature to judge at this point in his career,after all Gordy Bhoy has had a longer apprenticeship in the management game.
I'm sure he's in with a great shout though with advice from previous mentors and friends the likes of MON & Paul Lambert etc...

 

id rather have a manager that sticks up for our club than stand with their hands in their pockets saying "ah well thats football".

 

Look on the annual reports ya fruitcake they tell you

2001 £26M O'Neill
2002 £33M
2003 £33M
2004 £41M
2005 £37M
2006 £32M Strachan
2007 £36M
2008 £39M
2009 £39M
2010 £36M Mowbray
2011 £33M Lennon

Thats me rounding up or down to the nearest Million.

 

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <wunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <wontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> ILoveTheCeltic is one of the best Celtic posters on this site.

I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss his stats.
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]-->

 

He got 1 year out of Petrov and 2 years out of Lennon and replaced or tried to replace them with Donati, Gravesen, Sno and Jarosik.

He got 1 year out of Hartson then replaced him with Big Jan.

The rest were fine and he just didnt play Bobo, who could have easily played at any time.

 

Excellent and honest post. I agree. One of the key differences between Strachan and Lennon, independent of their results on the pitch, was how they connected with the fans. Lennon instinctively does that better - but obviously having been so closely associated with the club as a supporter and player for many years he had a better start in that regard.

 

First catch of the day....i was expecting somebody tae pull me up for that.
I agree,he does stand up for the team and i'm no suggesting he stands aboot wae his hons in his pockets but he best serves Celtic by being in the dug oot no in the stand.All i'm suggesting is that he boxes clever and doesn'y give they * the excuse to banish him...this in my opinion makes him a better manager and better for Celtic.

 

Aye that was a bad thing about Strachan, too many times he tried to say we played well when we never. At one point too I remember he left McGeady out the squad near Christmas and I think against the Huns - there was rumours of a bust up and McGeady getting punted, might have been his last season and I was threatening to not go to another game if he was sold. At that time McGeady was the only thing worth watching.

 

I remember that.

I don't want to criticise WGS too much as he was objectively a good manager but as others have pointed out, there were times when Strachan's attitude was just mystifying, especially if he had taken the huff.

On a more personal note - thanks for your excellent, considered posts with the wage statistics. It's good to see some solid fact-based debate.

 

The furthest back I looked was 1997. The season we had McNamara, Boyd, Stubbs, Mackay, O'Donnell, Grant, Weighorst, McStay, Donnelly, Thom, Cadete, Di Canio and Pierre - we only paid £9million in wages that season no wonder the 'three amigos' * off wanting more money The Huns wagebill was 3 times the size of ours back then.

 

...and look where it got them!

Imagine if they'd actually paid tax on it.

 

Aye, the Grave.

You can actually see the EBT involvement on them

1999-2000 season pre-EBT their wage-bill was £34million, the following season EBT's in full flow it was reduced to £33million.

That was despite Konterman, Ricksen, K.Miller, Lovenkrands, Tugay, A.Johnston, P.Ritchie, R.De Boer and Flo all joining and nobody of real note leaving except Durie and Hendry. How the * did their wage-bill decrease by £1million when they look like they added about £6million+ too it

Cheating EBT *.

Its obvious just seeing that that probably all the new signings were getting about 1/4 or 1/2 their wage through EBT's and probably a lot of the squad signed new contracts with EBT's.

 

Give and take a year. Doesn't matter anyway. I was just stating that he was taking in as much cash as he was spending.

 

That's all correct. You missed out Brown who was the only player he spend any great deal of cash on. I would say we've had our money out the player now.

WGS was shopping in the bargain basement and done a miraculous job.

 

Two areas where Neil Lennon wipes the floor with Gordon Strachan are:

Dealing with the media

No, I'm not having this. This is cleary the poster's opinion. Strachan imo has been our best ever manager at dealing with the media

Connecting with the fans

Again, a matter of opinion. WGS certainly connected to me like no other has. Don't get me wrong, I like listening to Neil Lennon who I find a very intelligent speaker but to say he wipes the floor with WGS in just a nonsense. Perhaps in some people's heads but certainly not mine.

When Strachan dealt with the media he was too busy trying to be quippy and the longer he stayed in the job the more obnoxious and defensive he became. To end up with he was just a pain in the * to listen to.

Again another opinion. Did you try listening to Mowbray? Now, that is what you've just described. Have you never heard Neil Lennon defending his players and in particular the ones hated by the 'boo boys?'. Every manager does it.

When Neil Lennon deals with the media he keeps his cool, comes across as intelligent and he tries to give the fans as much information as he can. He knows how to communicate with the Celtic fans because he is one himself.

Agreed

I'm grateful to Gordon Strachan for the trophies he delivered, and for the great European nights at Parkhead, but I am happier with Neil Lennon in charge of the team than I ever was with Strachan in charge of it. But then I love Neil Lennon so that was probably always going to be the case.

No reason to judge a manager's ability here

 

WGS was great with the media i thought, he knew how to handle them.

 

http://sportales.com/soccer/gordon-strachan-interview/

http://www.wsc.co.uk/wsc-daily/1028-Reappraisal/8249-strachans-persona-disguises-a-good-manager


I'm no fan of the Scottish media but Gordon Strachan forgot that the media are a vehicle through which he communicated with the Celtic fans. He was downright obnoxious at times and did not represent the club well with his smart arsed comments.

Neil Lennon has only been in the managerial game for 2.5 years and he's already got a far better grasp of how to handle the media.