Today, or tomorrow, we’re getting the “January review” verdict.
We can all guess what it will be, especially as the subject of that review doesn’t seem in any way concerned about what the outcome is going to be. I am concerned though, as many of us are.
Lennon ought not to think that one result out of five in January – or his never ending list of “mitigating circumstances” – would save him if this review were being done by those in the stands.
The dwindling band of folk who want him to stay are now massively outnumbered by those who simply wish he was gone already and dread the grind of four more months of his futile attempts to defend his car-crash job performance this season.
It’s the press conferences I’m getting increasingly sick of though. Lennon’s ego is now running amuck in them and he’s stopped caring whether he’s offending the government, the governing bodies, other clubs, the media or even the Celtic supporters.
That he’s prone to turning on his own players is an acknowledged fact like gravity.
Last night it was the turn of Vasilios Barkas, who we paid £5 million for in the summer.
Not only did Lennon slam him and confirm that he’s no longer being considered ahead of other players, but he actually insulted the kid Connor Hazard as well and handed the gloves to Scott Bain.
If you’re sick and tired of our musical chairs approach to picking goalkeepers this season I daresay you’re not the only one. But he’s just written off a very expensive footballer.
Even as he does so, another languishes on the bench most weeks, no nearer to getting games.
I can’t hold that against Lennon for now because Edouard and Griffiths are obviously choice number one and choice number two, but it’s emblematic of the wider issue with the manager, which is that he doesn’t seem to like the players who were bought for him.
Now you and I know that’s part of the problem, the part that lies in the office of the CEO, but Lennon has chosen to publicly damn our keeper which will have shattered whatever confidence Barkas has left.
If Lennon remains in charge for the next four months, you’ll not see Barkas again in the starting eleven. So why would anyone give Lennon more money to spend, or spend money on his behalf if that’s the version of the argument you prefer?
This is dreadful man management, the kind that drives dressing rooms apart.
You can’t have helped but notice that Celtic Park isn’t a particularly happy place to be right now.
If this is the way the manager is behaving in public, God knows what he’s like in private.
I cannot fathom how anyone thinks four more months of this will end well.