Carryharry is asleep at the wheel so Iâll take over Bandage:
Fri 21 December 2012
Neil Lennon has never been one to seek endorsements of his professional ability. If he ever did, however, the Celtic manager could take confidence from the admiration afforded to him by the most respected manager in British football.
Celticâs season, which has featured a victory over arguably the best team ever, Barcelona, as well as progression to the last 16 of the Champions League, could not have started better. On one Sunday afternoon in August, Sir Alex Ferguson paid a visit to Celticâs training ground and, in doing so, played a part in Lennonâs coaching development.
âHe gave us two hours of his time, which he didnât have to do, and I thought it was a brilliant gesture,â Lennon says. "It was in the privacy of a room at the training ground, just myself and my backroom staff, some tea and pancakes.
âHe was in great form. He has given us little titbits along the way for the Champions League games. Iâm not saying that has got us over the line, but every little bit helps. He was one of the only managers to write me a letter when we won the championship in May and Iâll be eternally grateful to him for that, as well.â
Celticâs training ground is an enthusiastic, confident environment at the moment. The success in the Champions League, where Juventus await in February, and the virtually certain defence of the Scottish Premier League are crucial to that. Looking back to how they got there, Lennon refers both to his maiden title win as Celtic manager and progression through the Champions Leagueâs qualifying stage as âpivotalâ.
âYou never get fully comfortable in any managerial role but you get more confident with success like that in the background,â he says. "I got fed up with people saying: âHeâs a young manager and heâll make mistakes.â
âOld managers make mistakes: Wenger makes mistakes, Ferguson makes mistakes, Mourinho makes mistakes. So what do people call them? Before winning the league, I felt like I was on probation. It has been a massive year for me, personally.â
Perhaps there was prescience from Ferguson in noting that Lennonâs managerial stock would soon be on the rise. Just as a clutch of Celtic players â Victor Wanyama and Gary Hooper among them â have received admiring glances from England, it is logical to suggest Lennon, too, could be coaxed to a more lucrative environment. Yet, in a nod towards the continued allure of Celtic, Lennon stresses it is wrong to suggest he would be tempted south by finance alone. âPeople speak about that but I havenât had one phone call,â Lennon says. "I have an agent who would have told me if there was any interest or even a whiff of it.
"And even then, it would take a lot for me to be tempted. It would have to be a club where there is the same substance to the job as I have here. That might not be in England, it might be abroad, but it would have to be a hell of an offer and a hell of a club to take me away from here at the minute.
"I really want to put the club at the forefront of European football again. Now that is a huge challenge because we are up against it financially, but it is one I enjoy.
"Other places wouldnât give you the same buzz. You would really have to go to a Champions League club to match what you have here. The opportunity to win trophies and the exposure you get at Celtic is something only maybe five or six clubs in England could match. The intensity of life here is something Iâm used to, Iâm institutionalised in it. In Glasgow, there is always a challenge.
âSomething else coming up isnât something I think about. Itâs nice to have people patting you on the back but it lasts a month until your next bad result, and people go away and talk about somebody else.â
Lennon speaks through uncomfortable experience. He left Glasgow once before, for a brief playing spell at Nottingham Forest. âI just couldnât get my head around it at all, which was my own fault,â he recalled. âThere was a lack of intensity, a humdrum lifestyle of a footballer down there.â
Scotlandâs own football landscape has been altered significantly by the removal of Rangers from the top flight and, therefore, the routine Glasgow derbies.
âI donât particularly miss the to-ing and fro-ing,â Lennon admits. âI think everybody misses the build up to the game itself and the raw energy that those matches bring but as a manager I donât miss them because they are not a nice experience at times. When you win, you just feel a pressure release and when you lose you are in a dark place for two or three days. People on the outside, the supporters, love all that theatre. Me? Iâm happy without it.â
And in the inevitable circumstance that the Glasgow duo meet again, will things be different? "I think it will be. I donât think Rangers are as strong on the pitch and I donât think they are as strong an institution as they once were.
âAnd we are, we have got stronger. We have got better on the pitch and the revenue we have brought in this year will leave us financially stable for a long, long time. I donât know the ins and outs of Rangers, I just look at their team and it has been significantly weakened because of all the big players who have gone.â
Lennon is more content, too, with a relative serenity around his private life after the string of threats which earlier endangered his safety. Eight months ago, two men were jailed for five years each after being found guilty of sending suspect packages to Lennon and two other high-profile Celtic supporters. âI think those guys getting put away in April has become a deterrent for anybody else. Things havenât been as bad for me, which has made life a lot easier,â Lennon said.
"I think without the Rangers-Celtic thing there has become more banter than anything sinister. At times when the two teams are competing for things there seems to be more of an edge to the sectarian element.
âThis is my job and I love my job. There were days when I thought about rapping it but you see the players progressing, you come here close the door and get on with your work. You realise there arenât many better jobs in the world. Do you really need to give it up? I was well looked after security-wise, had to put up with a bit of crap here and there but as long as the security people tell you that you arenât in imminent danger, you just get on with things.â
Lennon remains more eloquent, erudite and engaging than many have routinely given him credit for. Should his detractors be in the Northern Irishmanâs company for 10 minutes, they would acknowledge that. Still, the image of Lennon as a hot-head is one that irks the man himself .
âKenny Shiels and Steve Lomas [in charge of Kilmarnock and St Johnstone, respectively] at the minute are in trouble with the SFA. They are seen as a breath of fresh air for calling things as they see it, whereas Iâm perceived as lâenfant terrible or the thug on the touchline. Itâs the perception people have,â Lennon said. "It has bothered me because I was just, like Kenny, trying to be as honest as I could.
"If you look at my results over my three years in charge, we have been pretty successful here. I know how to get a winning team on the pitch more times than not and I think thatâs the most important thing.
"That doesnât give me the right to behave in a certain manner but I think I have toned that down as well. There are still times when you will lose your temper, when you donât think referees are having a good game. Now people donât perceive me as making as big a fuss about it. Other managers do worse than me without getting the negative publicity that I would get.
âThis isnât me bleating about it, itâs just a fact of life. I keep going back to the Celtic managerâs manual; people keep telling me I canât do this, canât do that. Where is this green book that I need to read? You stamp your own personality on the job and take it from there.â
Lennon has done that. And some. Just as intriguing as Celticâs upcoming games with Juventus is the question of how far their managerâs talents and ambitions can take him.
