Celtic didn’t post Neil Lennon’s Media Conference video onto You Tube yesterday but have now released it this morning. It’s just short of a half hour long and it’s a remarkable listen as the Celtic manager takes questions mostly from hacks but also from the Cynics who seem to be the representatives of the support – with a service behind a paywall and an audience in thousands rather than the tens or hundreds of thousands reach by some of the other Celtic fan media sites.
The Bhoys at the Cynic questioned the Celtic manager on what he actually does on the coaching front, an interesting enough question and the manager’s answers were enlightening. Why the club don’t want to invite other Celtic fans sites into these conversations with the manager and players and start a process of reducing the time and space given to the hacks to set the agenda remains a mystery. The benefit would be Celtic’s, not Fans media as sites like ours are not inconvenienced at all by picking the comments up from the You Tube video.
Neil Lennon impressed me watching this. You can make your own mind up, watch it for yourself.
Had Celtic held out in the closing stages at Pittodrie Celtic would be on the same points total at this stage of the season as last year, but instead we are two points worse off. Something worse remembering and a point well made by Neil Lennon yesterday.
He also didn’t miss the media and talked about the poll to have him sacked in one of the tabloids, which is open to anyone to vote on and will clearly be distorted by the supporters who transferred their allegiences to Charles Green’s new club in the summer of 2012 and have been major trophyless ever since.
He called out former player Kris Commons – without naming him directly – and probably reckons that he is due a bit more loyalty from a player who he was always very good to.
He defended Shane Duffy and any other Celtic player who has been the subject of intense criticism, before he Ireland skipper had a hellish week it was Greg Taylor and Scott Brown who were in the frontline of the critics. On Twitter one Celtic fan monitors ever second of the Celtic captain’s performances looking to find fault.
Lennon talked about ‘Fake News’ saying he didn’t want to sound like Donald Trump – referring to the made-up stories about trouble in the dressing room, arguments, fights and so on and said it was all nonsense. He talked about the click baiters, one picking up on some pretty disgraceful comments about Lennon himself, saying he’ll not only lose his job but he’ll never get another one in football ever again. This was on a podcast but not a Rangers one, it was actually the Celtic one that told theRangers the Celtic team the evening before the recent 2-0 defeat, according to a Lisbon Lion anyway.
The very point of establishing a Celtic fans media was surely to counter the anti-Celtic bias in the media and provide the Celtic support with an alternative that is produced by and for the wider Celtic family. But while all the sites are different, some are news focused blogs, others podcasts or whatever and while everyone is entitled to their opinion no-one should be making up stories or showing our manager the kind of disrespect – especially after all he has given to Celtic and all he has had to do go through because he’s been at Celtic.
Indeed we shouldn’t even be saying that kind of stuff and making up those kind of stories about any manager, player or official at any club even our biggest rivals.
There is a very good article today on this on ETims.net that is well worth checking out. And yesterday we carried a rallying cry from Tommy Sheridan, again well worth a read.
That is not to say that each and every single supporter should not be able to have their say and express their own opinion. Many did not want Neil Lennon as manager and after he was appointed they maybe somewhat grudgingly accepted the situation and got on with it. Now after a few bad results they have found their voice again – that is something Lennon accepts as coming with the territory.
Lennon also revealed that he’d attended a Board Meeting last Friday and speaks to Peter Lawwell on a daily basis and enjoys the CEO’s and the board’s continued support. Some supporters get it that Lennon and Kennedy are running the team exactly the way Lawwell wants it run and which would be a major problem for some of the names that are being suggested as Lennon’s replacements.
There is an article this morning on the betting for the next Celtic manager after Lennon is sacked and David Moyes is the favourite. Let that sink in.
Last night speaking to French media Odsonne Edouard confirmed that for now he’s concentrating on this season with Celtic before admitting that he’ll be looking to play at a higher level thereafter.
There will be big changes at Celtic next summer, perhaps all the way through the club. Many players may decide it’s time to leave or maybe hang up their boots in the case of the captain. Ajer, McGregor, Christie and others may fancy going Edouard playing in a bigger league and making more money. The loan signing will go back.
We might even end up with Peter Lawwell deciding that the time would be right for him to hand over to a new CEO and that would open up the question on how the new guy wants to operate the football department.
That’s the time to look at who is the Celtic manager. For now we are all in having spent a decade as a support doing ups but to get us to this stage. We are all in buying season tickets for games we won’t attend and we are all in in our longing for Ten-in-a-Row to be achieved.
The way we can do that as a support is to get behind the manager, the players and each other and support the team. Neil Lennon isn’t going to be sacked unless game after game is lost and by that time the Ten will be gone.
Win all our domestic games between now and the New Year game at Ibrox and we’ll be top of the league and will have won a quadruple treble. It’s time for the support to get it’s eyes back on the prizes.
