The Diary is in shock.
I feel like some Eastern European is ripping out my colon, in a back alley, with a rusty Phillips screwdriver. So, they are being proved RIGHT. The stumbling block is the “mentor” is the “father figure”. Our board seem hell bent on making an easy decision hard.
With a level of glee that will see them burst into a sickly sweetly arranged ironic take on ACDC’s Highway To Hell we find them gloating that we are “locked in coalition talks” with, not Trappatoni, not Wilkinson, not John Robertson, not even Nic Clegg but….Stuart Baxter. That’s like getting hit with a tin of tomato soup thrown by a gorilla.
“Celtic prepare to announce the duo as their management dream team” it continues without a care that Lennon and Baxter are nowhere near what sensible fans with enough grey matter would call a “dream team”. You can feel the gloating and laughter seeping from the page at us even thinking of appointing the mythical Stuart Baxter.
Baxter, to them, has a track record that makes him seem like the equivalent of a travelling salesman brushes and cleaning products to the backwaters of the world. Because he hasn’t managed in Britain then he hasn’t managed at all.
The massively botched attempt to force him on Lennon who “will make the final choice” and that it’s only going to be “part-time” gives this whole situation a further feel of farce and hopelessness.
Mixu Paatelainen was dug up and contributed “Stuart is a tracksuit manager who gets on the training ground” and that ” He doesn’t like being on the sidelines.” while the same tomb, on the other page, was telling us that Lennon “would be unlikely, for example, to let Baxter take training sessions, dictate tactics or decide on transfer targets” despite him looking like Mickey Rouke after a hair cut and a nice hot bath.
We don’t need the likes of John Collins to warn us that “his old club are asking for trouble in they appoint an experienced football mentor with Neil Lennon’s prior approval”.
Today is the day that the papers smelt blood. Over the next few weeks we need to give the a bloody nose back. The feel good spin did not last long.
It has already been describe this week as the “dreaded director of football role” and rest assured they will make sure that it won’t work. If Lennon doesn’t give the go ahead then the at war with the board type stories will appear.
It’s time to get ill.