The shambles at Celtic Park at the moment all flows from one thing; Neil Lennon remaining in the dugout.
It is quite incredible that we’re preparing for this weekend with him in post long after the point where someone above him should have pulled the lever on his ejector seat.
It is not a great place for our club to be in. It can’t be a great place for Lennon to be in either.
As we watch this ghastly spectacle get progressively worse every week, with press conferences and team performances which should be rated 18 and still labelled Do Not Watch Alone, questions automatically arise about what must be going on behind the scenes.
Are we really to believe that this board is as clueless and terror-struck as it seems?
Or is there more going on here than meets the eye? Are we, in fact, run by tactical and strategic geniuses who are weaving a show-stopping plot behind the scenes?
That doesn’t seem likely, if we’re being honest, since these are the men who gave us Lennon in the first place and have allowed him to stay long after it had become clear to everyone else that he was leading us all off a cliff.
But what, really, are the alternatives?
What possibilities are there?
Let’s, for now, take a look at them all … including the nightmare scenario itself, which is the one we will start out with.
The Board Has Decided He’s Staying
The absolute bottom of the barrel, the worst available option, the choice that would reverberate through the fan base like the detonation of a thermonuclear bomb.
It would spark protests, demos, the editorials would be vicious and the fury of the fans would be virtually unrestrained.
If it happens before season tickets have been bought they can forget it.
If it happens after they’ve been flogged in any decent numbers, the anger would be off the charts.
You think through all the permutations and consequences of a decision like that and you cannot even fathom it. Surely, you tell yourself, they couldn’t possibly be this reckless, this stupid, this oblivious to how nearly universally hated the idea would be?
And then you remember the diabolically crass way in which Lennon was appointed and that decision announced to us; I have lost count of the number of people who felt the air go out of the Treble Treble celebrations the minute they heard the news.
The truth is, few wanted Lennon in the first place.
Virtually nobody wants him now.
There is no football argument, no moral argument and no commercial and business argument in favour of letting him stay a minute longer.
But here he is, and in my view it’s by far the most likely outcome of whatever process is going on.
The Board Has Decided He’s Going At The End Of The Season
I will vehemently disagree with it – although not as much as his getting another year – but if he’s to be left in charge for the remainder of this campaign and then sent packing, we will all have serious questions for this club about why that was allowed.
All retaining Lennon for these vital few months will do is waste everybody’s time, and its time we could be spending better, on getting a new manager in whilst he can still learn something about the team and make decisions about its future.
Leaving Lennon in place as some kind of lame duck is pointless, even if he doesn’t yet know that’s what he is, which brings up numerous questions about the competency and attitudes of this board on its own.
Why waste the time? End it now, give us the knowledge that there will be a fresh start; there are few things which would raise the morale of the fans more.
But the board knows that there will be inevitable questions if they do, and the most important of them is why are allowing this guy to take up space, spend money and draw a salary when we all know that he’s failed?
Call him that.
Send the message that this level of failure is unacceptable to a club our size; I don’t know how we think we’re kidding with this “honourable exit” pish … it makes us look weak and amateurish.
It leads to speculation and disconent.
And worse, we have to put up with this guy and his deranged behaviour and ridiculous teams and naff tactics for another two months before it’s over.
The Board Has Yet To Make A Decision
This is somehow scarier than the first two options put together; the idea that sane and rational people can be watching this shit-show and not realise how important it is to bring it to an end one way or the other.
If our directors haven’t made the decision yet it begs the question; what exactly are they waiting for before they do?
The league’s out of our reach. We’re out of the League Cup. Europe was an abject humiliation. The conduct of the manager is now close to completely unhinged. The fans are in revolt.
If they think his prior record justifies ignoring all that then sell it to us; announce that decision and be prepared for the consequences of it.
I’ll understand sacking him.
I’ll not agree with retaining him but there will be an underlying logic to it; it will usher in downsizing and a recognition that for a few years (until we wise up) we’re going to have play second best and that it’s how our board wants it.
But if they’ve yet to decide that then frankly none of them should be near an institution the size of Celtic in the first place.
Because it’s farcical.
These are supposed to be serious people. What possible fact could they be waiting on or turn of events do they deem necessary before making up their minds? Are they waiting for Lennon to convince them? How?
He could literally win every game between now and the end of the season and the only facts that matter will be that we’ve not won the title, lost the League Cup and gone out of Europe twice in epic, humiliating fashion.
Those are the only stats that count, that and the absolute collapse of confidence in him or support for him amongst the fans.
If they can’t decide now, they might as well flip a coin and then go for broke.
The Board Is Sounding Out Candidate’s First
This one makes a surface kind of sense. You leave Lennon in place, without giving him an answer on his future, whilst you sound out alternatives. If none of them wants it then what choice do you have but to give him the gig all over again?
Two things are wrong, wrong, wrong about that.
First, how do you entice someone knowing that the club hasn’t even done the right thing and ended the uncertainty faced by the current manager? What’s your opening pitch? “If you say yes then we’ll need to have a frank conversation with him?”
Secondly, how can you be taken seriously if you admit that the managers has failed – and talking to potential replacements is admitting that – only to keep him anyway?
Apart from anything else, any scenario where Lennon gets to stay will be just unacceptable to the supporters and if he’s only there because you can’t find anyone else then the problem isn’t really him at all, it’s the rest of the people at the top of the club.
To be honest, I flatly refuse to believe that if they are already interviewing candidates that almost all of the interested parties wouldn’t represent an improvement on the current incumbent.
Nobody will convince me that there aren’t better candidates who would take the job.
I’m not suggesting him, but even John Hughes tactically outclassed Lennon at the weekend doing simple ABC stuff. He would be a marked improvement right now because clear thought went into his game plan and there was none in Lennon’s to speak of.
A guy like Steve Clarke would transform our organisation and tactical awareness, and coupled with a team of players who most of the time will vastly outclass the opposition we’d have a title winning team again before you knew it.
Clarke is not an A list manager and he would come in a second, so there’s simply no excuse for keeping someone like Lennon around when there are obviously better managers out there and who would take the job in a minute.
Are They Preparing To Dump The Decision On McKay?
Is the explanation for these delays rooted in two things; cowardice and the coming changing of the guard?
In short, has the board taken the decision to dump this mammoth decision on the desk of the incoming CEO, as a test of his talents and a way of finding out whether or not he’ll go against establishment thinking inside the walls?
I would love to write that off as absolutely ludicrous.
I would love to believe that there’s nothing in that and that it’s just my fevered imaginings.
But I find it difficult to so simply dismiss, because I do believe that our board would try something like this, in the ultimate example of passing the buck and using someone else as a human shield.
Let’s face it, many of us believe that’s exactly what they are doing right now with Lennon.
Lawwell is going, and as he’s been frequently assigned the role of hatchet man and bearer of bad tidings I wonder if there is anyone else on the board who is comfortable in the role of the butcher, and if perhaps Lawwell isn’t giving them a little lesson in what it’s like to walk in his shoes by refusing to do the deed.
If none of them will, maybe the new guy will instead?
Honestly, you’d hate to think the club was run on such a petty, self-serving basis … and then you remember Desmond leaving Lennon in post to spite people and you realise it is.
Could A Clause In Lennon’s Contract Bring This To A Swift End?
There is one other possible explanation for Lennon still being in post and it’s this; what if this is Celtic being tight-fisted again, and at the same time acknowledging the manager’s failure only for Lennon himself to gum up the works by refusing a settlement deal?
And what if there was something in Lennon’s contract which made it impossible for him to hang on for much longer?
In short, what if he’s got a requirement to win the league or fall on his sword in there, and the club is simply waiting until that officially kicks in?
It’s almost mathematically impossible for us to win the title.
What if that’s the delay?
What if we need to remove the word “almost” from that sentence before the axe comes down?
Again, there’s a certain grim plausibility about it, and to be honest I don’t think many people at this point would have much sympathy for Lennon if the club was waiting until he was contractually out of options and could no longer make demands.
If that’s the case we’ll know soon enough, because the writing is already on the wall.
The Ibrox club could be heading for Celtic Park as champions or only needing a draw there to secure the title.
If true, time is running out for Lennon … it’s just infuriating that it’s running out for us too.
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