Celtic have managed to force the Marseille manager out, but still retain Lennon.
Incredible stuff.
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He’d actually be ideal, a masterstroke from Lawell
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Would certainly rehabilitate him with the British audience after the hatchet job Lampard and the Redknapps did on him.
That’s a good post @Bandage. I commend you for it.
Not everything is as black and white as some would suggest. And of course you have eejits on here commenting about Celtic every week who have seen 1 or 2 games all season but claim to know the und and outs of everything.
Rodgers was clearly an excellent manager. It’s worth remembering how we had stagnated quite a bit under him though. I think our record up to Christmas this year was the same in the league as in Brendan’s last season. Now performances were worse this season (and the poor results now are catching up on poor performances for months) but we had begun to struggle. And our last European campaign was poor with a really poor loss to AEK and a dismal exit to Valencia.
We turned things around in January in fairness but if Lennon doesn’t get credit for that season then he deserves it for mirroring the effort the following year. Again two awful European exits, in more winnable games that we conspired to lose. While AEK and Valencia deserved to beat us, we threw away the Cluj and Copenhagen games under Lennon despite actually playing reasonably well (but far too disorganised).
And even as recently as the last huns game we did that preparation finally and looked to have a system that worked well but a stupid error and then a poor response from Lennon with some bad decisions to rescue the game. That was something that Rodgers struggled with too, even moreso maybe. When we struggled at all in his game we tended to struggle for the whole match (apart from Anderlecht away). We took some poor beatings in Europe in particular when we got worse and worse as games went on.
But there’s little doubt Lennon shouldn’t have been appointed. I was on a bus back from Hampden Park when the news came in and there were very few happy reactions among the support. He’d been brought in to do a job and had just about managed it but giving him the permanent position was clearly not the right call.
Any toddler can keep arguing against what they see in front of them but Lennon did deserve credit for much of what we saw last year. That direct style probably worked well with a core group of players who were still playing to patterns learned under Rodgers and we were very good at certain points of the season and got some very good results. I don’t know if it’s just luck - I think we played well in an inherited system with some added energy to break down the more formulaic stuff.
But the extended break almost meant we forgot everything from a couple of years ago and needed more coaching and more development and Christ that had been completely lacking. I’ve no idea why he’s still in a job after a disaster of a season, can only hope we’re waiting for some illustrious candidate to become available but it doesn’t seem likely.
That post is the most masterful straddling of a fence since some poor horse an Beecher’s brook.
Chapeau.
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A continental coach with good connections is the way for Celtic to go.
They should be getting the best of the best loanees from the top sides. Passing style, huge expectant crowd, the necessity to win every week and European football.
The seem they were mining with the likes of VVD and Wanyama looks over. The amount of trash that has come into the premier league in recent years for under 5 or 6 million quid is astonishing. The value is probably between 15-40 million at this stage.
The lad that Liverpool took who Celtic wanted is where its at, lower league, scottish players and elite loanees like Patrick Roberts was at the time.
On N’tcham, I’d a few bob on the French 21s at the tournament a couple of years back, (England should’ve won this but their manager was an idiot), Ntcham is one of the most frustrating players going, heap of ability but lazy and would dwell on the ball just because he felt like it. Pity for Celtic as they identified a great talent. surely there’s another excellent kid at PSG that Celtic could take on loan in the manner of Edouard or Dembele?
Brexit has made this strategy more problematic. A good young player from PSG might work but the likes of Wanyama will likely not be allowed to sign unless Scotland negotiates a relaxation of the rules (they were given a dispensation until yesterday).
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@Rocko with a very poor attempt to rewrite history.
Stats silence for weeks when the shit hit the fan the posts that rubbish.
Pathetic.
Elhamed is heading back to Israel. Fee agreed with Be’er Sheva I think.
He was some donkey.
Look at his career before Celtic FFS.
What were they expecting?
What’s been the story with him this season? His family went back to Israel because of the pandemic and he’s been lonely or something? He had some decent games last season, one at Ibrox stands out, but he’s been pitiful when involved this season. He had a brutal intervention, or lack thereof, for Ferencvaros’ winner in the summer and stunk the place out after that.
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Stat I read earlier was he’s managed 13 league games (6 of which as subs) and 12 in Europe.
Another I’ll be glad to see the back of
Yeah apparently on his own and finding it difficult with no family and isolating.
He was good away to Lazio too as I recall and had a few good appearances but he turned last year’s erratic form into consistent dreadful performances this season. At least we won’t be relying on him as a replacement for Frimpong or a solution to our centre back problems.
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He parallels Lennon then.
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Linked with Fergal Harkin (Donegal lad at Man City) to be Director of Football from the summer.
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Celtic’s aim now should be to test young players to see are they up to it and to give new players bought this season more game time
Lennon’s aim is to win as many games to save his reputation
These are at odds with each other
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You only have to look at this week to show the mismanagement of the youth setup. Liam Hughes signed for Liverpool, deal for Cameron Harper agreed with NY Red Bulls as hes out of contract soon. Angelini and Dembele both look set to depart in the Summer as well out of contract.
Thats on top of Josh Adam going to Man City and Barry Hepburn joining Bayern in the last 6 months.
These are some of the most highly rated underage players and yet only Harper (1 appearance due to Dubai) and Dembele (a handful of sub appearances) have got close to first team game time?
No reserve league hampers us but the model needs to be completely restructured.
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The club, under Lennon and lawell, are a shambles.
Sin e.
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