Celtic tonight has released a statement stating that “the Board believes that Neil and his management team are best placed to turn the team’s performances around and lead us on to success.”
They have suggested that this position will only be reviewed in the New Year.
This is the most delusional garbage I have ever read out of Celtic Park.
It confirms that Lennon will get the cup final. It confirms that he will lead the team to Ibrox.
It confirms that the directors have no intention of bowing to the inevitable, even now.
This is a scandalous statement from the club, coached in sentimentalist claptrap such as that they are “(continuing) to operate according to our Club’s values”, which is laughable considering that this is the most self-serving action I have ever seen at Parkhead and in no way consistent with what is in the best interests of Celtic Football Club.
The idea that Lennon can find a way out of this is, clearly, contemptible nonsense.
The idea that he and his coaching team are the best people for this job has never been true, not from the minute they were appointed, and nobody believes it to be even remotely true now.
The people running Celtic are leeching the life out of our club – the manager included – and in the most important season in decades have provoked a stand-off with the supporters which threatens the fabric of everything that has been built since the time of Fergus McCann.
Talk that the club is still on a quest for success is preposterous when one considers the size of the gap in the league, the early exit from the League Cup, the disgraceful performance in the Champions League and the humiliations we have endured in the second tier European competition, where we are last in the group and on the brink of one of the worst finishes in the history of the club and perhaps even the Europa League Group Stage itself.
It is inconcievable that the manager of any other top tier side would have survived this.
The Celtic board cannot hide the simple truth that they have no idea what to do in this situation and no plan for taking the club forward.
These are men without a coherent strategy or plan.
The statement ends with the club thanking the fans for their “magnificent” support and issued a denial that anyone at the club ever suggested that we were “entitled.”
It comes with the usual caveat about all wanting the same things, and the same success.
But tonight’s statement, as with the one last week, has all but guaranteed that there will be no success this season, because we will not win things whilst the present manager is at the helm. He has proved himself utterly incapable of fixing the problems at our club.
Indeed, I don’t believe he even recognises those problems for what they are.
The statement claims that the club is united; I know for a fact that the club is not united, and that key members of the playing staff no longer support the management team; it is high time those players considered their own response to this fantastical rubbish.
The idea that Celtic is one big happy family is a nonsense and to pretend otherwise is to lie to the fans.
Celtic is now run for the benefit of three men; Desmond, Lawwell and Lennon.
None will emerge from this with one iota of supporter sympathy or respect.
That statement is mortifying.
The people who drafted it have shamed themselves tonight and they have condemned us to a month of frustration and the possibility of greater humiliation to come. It is an insult. It treats us like children, telling us to sit down and shut up as our club rots from the inside.
It is simply beyond belief that they would expect us to do so.
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