Neil Lennon, Open Goal interview

To be fair, so is Rodgers.

 

I think almost every manager is. You need a bit of that to take on a role with so much pressure and responsibility.

 

Still think he's a good manager personally. He just never managed covid good at all. Now hes not the only one. Majority of huge clubs that win most years never actually won that year. A total weird anomaly that happened in near enough every league.

One bad season with the amount of cracking seasons hes had as manager, I'm willing to forgive.

 

I don’t think any amount of time will make that season any easier to digest. Going for 10IAR, which we may never get the opportunity to do again, and he absolutely * it and still takes no responsibility for it.

He’s just not a very good manager and never has been. Criminal from our board that he was even in the position to lead us into that season in the first place.

He’s clearly incredibly passionate about the club and I do enjoy listening to his punditry etc. But I’ll never really completely forgive him for that shambles of a year.

 

We were massively under prepared for the 10iar season.

We were banking on the fact we couldn't really slip much and the huns couldn't improve alot.

Players wanted away and they should have gone. Doesn't matter who it is if you keep an unhappy player you ain't getting his best.

He's said before we wouldn't have got the price we wanted. He's acting like covid just affected Celtic only. If we couldn't get our prices then surely that means the market as a whole had dipped which mean we would have paid less to get players in.

We started first week of the season with Scott * Bain in net. The most important season in our history. We then panic bought Barkas.

Blame covid if you want but we were MASSIVELY under prepared and probably far too complacent.

 

To be fair barkas has been good everywhere else he’s been before and since so I think the scouting was probably right for that. Just Covid completely destroyed him socially and playing wise. Then a few errors and his career with us was done for good.

hindsight of course but looking back we’d have been best signing the best domestic talent for that year (so no one had to settle in), But obviously nobody knew how it’d play out and we as fans would have rioted no doubt If it looked like we were scrimping out that season

 

It was a collective * show that he had a big hand in..

I'm no bitter about him whatsoever now though. Each to their own but he did * up, and aye his ego (like most managers as mentioned) won't allow for him to admit that.....but he'll know deep down the part he played in the *..

* we never got the 10 but we haven't exactly looked back since then, have we?

 

Watched some of it there but not got to the covid season stuff yet. As already said it was a * up by all concerned, as well as everything going against us in every way imaginable. He made mistakes and should have been relieved of his duties way earlier than he was, but I give him a pass just because of the crazy circumstances of the whole thing.

As for the podcast, was pishing myself at the story about Tommy Burns. Riordan and Kenny Miller squaring up, Lenny 'let's see what happens, two lightweights going at it'. Tommy walks over an starts encouraging it 'ooh, ooh, ooh'

Love the bold Lenny. Celtic Legend.

 

How can you say with all honesty he isnt a good manager? He didn't get us to the last 16 beating the greatest barca side in history? He didn't win a treble? He didn't beat the "real" rangers to the league? Hes done far better than the majority of managers we've had.

 

Well he's 53 and managing Dunfermline in the Scottish Championship after being sacked from jobs in Cyprus and Romania. I wouldn't say any manager with that track record in the past few years is a "good manager".

His record at Celtic was mixed. In his first spell he won 2 domestic cups from 8 attempts. Took over from an utterly dominant Celtic side in his second spell. Did well to win another treble of course, then led us to our first trophyless season since 2010.

Of course there were lots of highs in both his spells, but also loads of real dross.

Ange and Rodgers are both levels above him as a manager.

 

I don’t actively dislike him, but I’ll never forgive him 100% for that season. He was so irresponsible and reckless that it was actually contemptible.

 

I definitely don't dislike him as much as I did, the thing that still * me off more than anything is the fact he would not resign. The board at fault there too tbf. His fake twitter account is weird as * too.

 

You’re blaming the club for that though, surely? It’s not on him to leave when he has a contract.

 

Think that’s birthday card pish mate, with all due respect. You can have a deep affection for something but still want what’s rightfully yours.

Same people who moan at McCarthy for picking up £15k a week for 4 years. Not his fault at all. He signed a contract and the club needed to honour that, either by letting it run down or pay him off. Lennon should have been sacked weeks before. It was on the club to do that.

Genuinely find it baffling that people use the ‘Celtic man’ card and expect the guy to walk away from a £3m a year contract because it wasn’t working out at the time. Guy has financial obligations and a family.