Former Celtic manager Neil Lennon is back in the spotlight again, this time stating he thinks it’s a ‘mystery’ that no one has come knocking at his door offering him a route back into management after the disastrous end to his second Celtic spell.
“It’s frustrating,” Lennon admitted to Sunday Post. “Some people probably assume that I’m not looking for a return to management because of the way it ended at Celtic. But nothing could be further from the truth.
“I’m still relatively young, as hungry as ever and believe I would bring something to any club. And I’d like to think my track record compares favourably to most.
“Some players just got to the end of the road. The pandemic hit us badly, because once we returned to action, we were never the same again. I still look back with immense satisfaction at what I did achieve. But one or two people have short memories.
“It is a bit of a mystery. I think I’ve done a decent job wherever I’ve been.”
Personally i find it hard to grasp the rationale behind Neil believing that other clubs would be lining up to hire him after how his latest spell in charge of Celtic ended. I agree that during both his first and second spell as manager with our club that he had plenty of success in terms of trophies won but that only tells part of the story.
He left both Bolton and Hibs after the players had turned on him. He recently left Celtic under the overwhelming assumption that the players had stopped performing for him there too. These were the same players who had continually won trophy after trophy during the previous four years. A winning machine that looked unstoppable suddenly ending a season trophyless and a huge 25 points behind theRangers.
He constantly uses arguments such as ‘players hitting the end of the road’. This just doesn’t wash with me. Watching Ange Postecoglou speak to the Celtic fan media last night (listen below) one thing that really caught my attention was Ange stating that he is constantly monitoring players attitudes.
When talking about keeping Jota and others he was very clear. If they want to stay, fully buy into his philosophy and give everything to the club then, and only then, will he sign them up. If they want to be somewhere else? See you later.
I absolutely love this about Ange. He refuses to waste his time with players who would rather be at another club or in another league. That’s an intelligent manager in my opinion. Weed out the bad apples before their attitude affects the whole group. If Neil was a good manager he would have noticed this at the start of last season and let the ‘wantaways’ go. Used the money to get hungry players who wanted to play for Celtic and led us to the Ten. But he didn’t.
He also refused to pass the reins to someone else when it was clearly obvious that he was failing. Most of us knew from December onwards he had blown it. We were going from one disaster to another with no end in sight. We needed someone else to come in and try to save the season while we still had time. He always promised that as he loved the club he would always do the right thing by it and if that meant him falling on his own sword then so be it. But he didn’t.
These are just some of the reasons Neil is finding it difficult to attract other clubs to take a gamble on him. I genuinely hope he does get another opportunity somewhere as no matter what happened last season he will always be a huge part of our clubs history. To state it’s a ‘mystery’ that he hasn’t been snapped up though is nonsense. Scooby do could even solve this one.
Incidentally a quick look at theRangers main forum to see what they are saying about Neil Lennon’s comments and the consensus over in that swamp is that he’ll end up as the next Aberdeen manager.
Conall McGinty
Why the rush? He is a millionaire,got a £600k payoff from Celtic and should try to relax and recharge before throwing his name into the frame during the summer when there will be plenty of vacancies….
No mystery Neil – do you forget your final season ! Wish I could – any true celtic man would have walked when he lost the dressing room