A delighted Neil Lennon spoke to talkSPORT earlier today as the newly appointed manager of Cyprus champions AC Omonia Nicosia, explaining how the move came about and his excitement at getting back into work after leaving Celtic a year ago. Lenny has spoken often since leaving Celtic about his wish to work abroad, you may remember attempts to catch the eye of clubs in Israel a few months back but now it seems he’s back in the business and looking forward to maybe winning a cup this season and trying to get back into Europe.
“I got a phone call from an agent at the weekend saying that Omonia would be interested in taking on my services. I did a bit of research on it, spoke to representatives of the club, the president and had a look at some of the recent games. I have to say I was quite impressed by the standard and attitude of the players.
“They are the current champions but haven’t had a great season this year but are still in the cup competition which we obviously want to try and progress in. That’s the target now, finish the season well and try and win a trophy.”
“You always have reservations about any of these things but I always fancied the opportunity to work abroad. I think it will be a nice climate change but that is not the be-all and end-all I think more than anything it is a nice challenge and one that really appeals to me.
“It’s a big club. I think it is quite a competitive league and at the end of it if you are successful there is the opportunity to take the club into Europe again. They’ve got a chance of winning trophies but it is the overall being back in the game and a new challenge and culture to take on and see where it takes me.
“I had a good time at Celtic. It didn’t end well but I’ve been at Hibs and Bolton and done over 500 games. I sort of spent a lot of time in Scotland and wanted a new challenge and Omonia are going to give me this new challenge.
“It is very exciting, it is going to be different and take a little bit of adaption but having more and more looked at it and researched it, it ticked a lot of boxes for me. There is always the opportunity to come back again anyway, but for the short-term and the next sort of year or so my full focus is going to be on Omonia.”
Not getting that Neil Lennon is still getting stick for what happened last season. It’s gone, we’ve moved on, things are rather exciting under Ange and last season’s decisions that were taken or more importantly not taken should now be seen as water under the bridge, and we should all be happy that Lenny is back in work and is well out of the road of the kind of sectarian abuse that he’s had to endure in Scotland for over two decades.
Hopefully it all works out well for him and certainly I’ll be hoping he is a big success at Omonia Nicosia.
He’ll get them drinking like champions if nothing else.