“I think a change is needed, the time has come,” John Hartson admitted. Speaking on The Celtic Exchange Podcast the close friend and former Celtic team-mate of the club’s current manager, has now reluctantly come to the conclusion that time is up for Neil Lennon.
My latest #podcast episode with the @celtic_exchange after Celtic draw at home to Livingston. Listen to the full episode here 👉🏻 https://t.co/K8LmA8f4uT
— John Hartson (@JohnHartson10) January 16, 2021
And Hartson explain why the change should happen sooner rather than later as the support awaits the outcome of the promised January review. The only problem with that of course is that we now need a January review of not just the management team but also the Board itself after FOUR points have been lost this week after Peter Lawwell sanctioned the trip to Dubai which resulted in 13 players having to miss the home draws against Livingston and Hibs. The corresponding fixtures earlier in the season yielded six points incidentally.
“There are fifteen or sixteen games to go and it’s the perfect opportunity for the board to get together and say ‘we need to get this right’, Hartson stated. “They have to give another manager the opportunity to run the club now.
“The club need to put down a statement and say they need to change it, whether Neil goes at the end of the season or he goes now. It’s a tough call for me to say it, but it needs done now because it needs fresh faces in there and it needs a new team. Whoever the new manager will be, he needs his own team – his own assistants and his own goalkeeping coach,” Hartson argued.
The Welsh international striker remains conflicted due to his close friendship with Neil Lennon but both men have been involved in the game long enough to know that football management is a results business and also that in Glasgow first is everything.
“I send Neil best wishes and good luck every time when he needs it, but to lose a league in such a big, big season like they have. At the end of the day, a load of the players – not just myself, but Chris Sutton, Stan Petrov, Thommo, myself, Henrik – we all love Neil Lennon.
“We all want him to succeed and were delighted when he brought home the Quadruple Treble.
But I do genuinely think that with the situation in the league, change is needed from the bottom right up to the top.”
Hartson has been reluctant to call for change, preferring to remain sitting rather uncomfortably on the fence over the past few weeks but the worsening situation – after few thought it could get much worse – means that he’s had to call for immediate action.
“It has taken me probably up to the last couple of weeks, I said at the start of the season I’m behind the manager one hundred percent. Whenever I mention it or Chris or Stan Petrov mentions it, people say ‘your pal, your pal’.
“At the end of the day, there is loyalty there but it has taken me until recently to see if there is going to be a turnaround, but there hasn’t been much of a change or improvement in performances.
“Maybe the players need a different voice? Maybe Neil needs a new challenge and needs a little bit of fresh start? He’s done everything in his power to make it work and sometimes it just doesn’t work. Neil is intelligent enough and he’s got to see this.
“The whole thing needs to be changed and a team needs to come in, and it needs to happen pretty soon because they’ll need time. There will be loads of movement in the summer, players will want to go and there are players who deserve to go because they have been at Celtic a long, long time.
“They need to get the recruitment right to challenge (the)Rangers for the title next season.
“(the)Rangers will be buoyed, Steven Gerrard will be immortal if he stops the ten – and I think he’s already done that – so they will obviously offer him the world to stay on. You might see (the)Rangers throwing the world at him, there will be a feel good factor, they’ll kick on, get more sponsorship money on the back of winning the league.
“It’s all to do for Celtic, they have a lot to think about and I think a change is needed.
I would like to see new staff, a freshness and a fresh impetus coming in – the players need new ideas. The club needs a change, it looks stale at the moment and there is so much work to do. They can’t afford to stand still, that’s what I’m saying.”
