Scott Brown perhaps knows Neil Lennon better than anyone else at the club and the club captain believes that the former manager will be hurting badly at the moment after the news was officially announced earlier this morning that he had resigned as Celtic manager.
Speaking to the official Celtic website, Broony tried to get his head around everything that has happened this season that has led us to where we are today.
“It’s been a difficult season in a lot of ways, so you’ve got to feel sorry for the manager. We’ve got to take responsibility. It’s a sad day to see him leave but it’s because we’ve not been playing as well as we can on the park.
“Even after he left Celtic as manager the first time, we kept in contact all the way through, and it was great to see him come back. He was fantastic for me the first time around. He kept me on as captain, he gave me a lot of confidence. The second time he came in, I was a little bit older, and he continued to play me,” Scott Brown noted.
The Celtic captain knows the impact that the decision to resign will have on Lennon, given his love of the club. “It’s obviously a hard decision for him as well to leave the club that he loves and that he wants to do well. He always wanted Celtic to win week in, week out, whether he was manager or not.”
“It’s not been a great season to go down in our history books, but it’s one that we’ve got to take on the chin,” Broony added. “We’ve got to start performing as well as we can for the remainder of the season. We keep saying that, but we need to try and get it done. We need to get back to winning ways, bring back the fans and bring back the pride in Celtic as well.
“Neil won another treble for us – he won the Quadruple Treble, which we picked up against Hearts, and he’s got great passion for the club.
“He’s supported Celtic his whole life and he wanted to play for this club – he won a treble as a player, as well as a manager. He’s given 15-20 years to this club and he deserves respect, and also praise for what he’s done for the club and the success he brought us.
“I probably wouldn’t still be captain at Celtic if it wasn’t for Neil Lennon. He kept me on after Tony Mowbray left, and he was a breath of fresh air when he came in. He was great with the lads, and we were fighting for him because we wanted him to get the job, and eventually he did get it.
“He was the one who started the nine-in-a-row, and he was the one who got us the nine as well.”
John Kennedy will take charge of the team for the remaining games of the season as Interim Manager and he will be hoping to do enough to convince the new CEO Dominic McKay that he is worth a crack at the job on a permanent basis. Certainly the bookies have him up there among the favourites. Brown and the Celtic players will now have the game against Aberdeen on Saturday as their main focus.
“One good thing about football is that there’s always another game around the corner,” the Celtic captain said.
“We need to get better, get back to winning ways and start making Celtic Park a fortress again.
“We’ve just got to take it one game at a time, and concentrate on Saturday’s game against Aberdeen. John’s done well over the years with the manager, with Brendan and with Ronny as well, and while I know it’s not the circumstances he would have wanted, he’ll take it in his stride.”
