HIBS fans are in meltdown over a conspiracy theory that the new Celtic manager Neil Lennon engineered his departure from Easter Road last month with full knowledge that Rodgers would be leaving for Leicester City and that the subsequent vacancy at Celtic Park would be his to fill.
Here’s how the conspiracy theory developed last night on Hibs.net – part 2 to follow which is their reaction to the actual appointment of Neil Lennon to the Celtic job…
HIBS FANS AND THEIR MAD CONSPIRACY THEORY
“It has been on the cards for weeks and Lenny was suposed to have met with Lawwell for lunch the week before he was mutually dismissed.”
“Tell you what, I smell shxte, did Lenny get the heads up on this one? One for the conspiracy theorists…”
“Jake Humphrey on Twitter saying they’ve known for weeks that Rodgers going to Leicester was on the cards.”
“Did Lennon know what was coming and worked his ticket, things not going great here, getting disillusioned maybe at Hibs and the lure of Parkhead again where he’s idolized.”
“There is no way that Puel gets bulleted, Rodgers replaces him and Lennon is in at Parkhead within 24 hours unless it’s all been teed up well in advance.”
“To say that I’ll be angry if Lennon gets the Celtic job is an understatement. It’ll say to me that Rodgers was tapped up weeks ago and in turn, Celtic tapped up NL. He then set about working his ticket, culminating in the dressing room fracas and following incident which saw him suspended. Hibs would be furious, but they won’t say anything because the contracts weren’t paid up and they wouldn’t want to undermine our new coach. However, all the respect I had for Lennon, and it was considerable, will go. But surely he’s not that sort of person? He wouldn’t be so brazen, would he?”
“Tell you what, if he’s in the Celtic dugout on Saturday I hope there’s no elements of our support who feel he deserves a good welcome, cos I smell *****.”
“The suggestion from some journos seems to be that this has all been lined up for weeks hence the speed it’s moving at. If that’s the case then it may well be that NL was employed by Hibs while engineering his move. If (and it is an if) that’s the case then that’s what he’s done wrong.”
“If he’s in the dugout on Saturday, there’s going to plenty players in our team who will do everything they can to prove a point.”
“Actually now seems to me that the reason for his departure and the whole scenario has been staring us in the face this whole time. He was speaking to Celtic who wanted to bring him in as replacement for Rodgers. Hibs then put him on a ‘suspension’ to look into the matter as he maybe did it behind their back. He wasn’t sacked or didn’t resign because Celtic had actually agreed to pay a compensation fee for him. Both parties didn’t reveal details of his exit due to the fact they couldn’t basically reveal that Rodgers would be leaving Celtic and Neil would be replacing him in the near future. I could be wrong, but it seems quite realistic.”
“The speed it’s all moving at would add a bit credibility. It took us weeks to appoint a new manager yet Leicester and Celtic are both heading towards appointing their men within a day or so. There was plenty time after he left for them to have discussed this and that is absolutely fine if that’s the case. The journalists that are posting about their versions of events would seem more a case of this being organised while he was still at Hibs. That wouldn’t be fine. Who knows what one is correct.”
“Deals like this happen all the time in football, I don’t think there’s any coincidence that Rodgers is going to Leicester the week after Celtic get knocked out of Europe. All the moves will have been in place for a while.”
“Lennon knew it was going to happen months ago, Leanne got wind of it or Lennon told her, and she took action. He has connections at Leicester as well and maybe wanted to give Leanne as much warning as possible. He is back to his only love and will almost certainly be a stick-on for the full job. The ‘interim’ thing was to try and make it look like it wasn’t planned.”
“He was a good Manager with Hibs. Nobody knows for sure the reason why he left. If he gets the Celtic job, you could ask yourself why he would good enough for Celtic, but somehow not good enough for Hibs.”
“Sky news reporting that Lennon has cancelled his flight to Doha to work as a pundit.”
“The devil is in the detail with hint dropping last week, he said publicly that he might or might not manage in Scotland once again, you never know but there isn’t really any where else he can go. Well he knew himself what was going on, and if he does take the Interim Manager’s job then he has played a blinder.”
“So let me get this right, Leicester tapped up Brendan Rodgers illegally and Celtic are aware and are happy to not raise this as a concern, but instead got in touch with Neil Lennon and told him to work his way out of Hibs so they can give him the job on a temp basis till the end of the season? This what we are saying?’
“Some have short memories, Lennon was an odious little turd when he played for Celtic then subsequently managed them. I supported him / tolerated him during his time at Hibs but it won’t take people long to remember the old Lennon that so many of us disliked.”
To be continued…
