The (Temporary) Hiring Of Neil Lennon
The temporary hiring of Neil Lennon was the moment the real slide started.
There can no doubt that it was the biggest contributory factor in what happened this season.
It was the moment our club basically stopped caring about standards.
My initial reaction to that appointment was anger, because it was immediately apparent that unless Lennon completely crashed the car he would have a chance of getting the gig permanently, which I was not in the slightest doubt would be a disaster.
Our board has always been perfectly capable of blowing ten in a row; I’ve known that since I found out we hired Ronny Deila after initially marking him down as Lennon’s assistant.
From that moment on I knew that we had people at Celtic Park who were nowhere near as smart as they think they are and nowhere near as ambitious for our club.
Lennon had just been sacked by Hibs after blowing up the dressing room in the manner he had at Bolton. I know, by now, some of the details of what went on at that club and if I know them then you had better believe that Celtic directors were similarly aware of them.
If they weren’t they only had to call Leeann Dempster.
Neil Lennon should not have been near Celtic Park, in spite of the justifications that he “understood the club” and other such tripe which was prevalent at the time and which convinced myself and many other sceptics that there was some merit in the idea.
Looking back it’s perfectly clear that there wasn’t.
I write that in the full knowledge that Lennon completed that campaign with the trophies and titles and that he won the next three as well. I think, though, that Rodgers had set such high standards across the club that it was a while before they fell but once they had they crash came rapidly.
Lennon’s hiring on the temporary basis let the club believe that we didn’t need to go out and find a top class Brendan replacement. His initial successes convinced them that they could continue to do things on the cheap, whilst the CEO pocketed a third of the money we got for our former boss and his management team.
They didn’t make the slightest effort to use it to replace him; they simply grabbed a guy who was available and there is no evidence they made the slightest effort to find a decent Rodgers replacement as that season wore on.
We could have sorted out our problems had we learned something from the manner in which Rodgers left; some people at the club could have snapped back into sanity and gotten a grip.
Had they put Kennedy – yes Kennedy – in temporary charge in February 2019 whilst they conducted an immediate search for a new manager – Cocu, Blanc and dozens of others were all available at the time, Clarke would have walked to Parkhead for the job even for six months and would have won us the lot – we would not be in this mess right now.
Instead we took a lazy, cheap option lacking in imagination and vision. Disastrous.