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Amidst The Gerrard To Newcastle Nonsense, Why No Link With Lennon After His Celtic Treble?

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Now that some in the press are jokingly (but not really) mentioning Callum Davidson in connection to the Newcastle job, you’ll have noticed that an even more successful manager from Scotland has been left out of the discussion.

As my old man said to me the other day, “If Gerrard is a serious contender, Lennon must be as well.”

Which sums it up rather well I thought.

The press in this country is hard to take seriously.

If Gerrard is a candidate because of his title win in Scotland and his European form, and if we’re ignoring the negative parts of that record including those in this campaign, then Neil Lennon should be in front of him in the queue for an interview.

This is only logical. As he is fond of remind us, his own record in this tenure is five trophies in eight, including two titles and two Scottish Cups.

Oh yeah, and a domestic treble.

Apparently this record is less worthy than Gerrard’s one trophy in nine.

Why is this notion somehow deemed more ridiculous than the idea that the Saudi billionaires would want Gerrard? Lennon’s domestic record here is vastly superior. His Europe record including beating Lazio home and away.

That’s surely impressive to someone? That’s surely reason enough for at least one national title conjuring up a possible link?

When you consider the idea of Lennon as pretty outlandish and unrealistic – and it really is, it is miles outside the bounds of reality – then the Gerrard link is surely even more preposterous, and yet our media has spent a week discussing it as if it were not a joke.

Yet there is not one journalist, even amongst those who have outlined why Gerrard would be a candidate who have even considered that Lennon has an even greater claim to one. Is the force of a man’s name really a criteria on which a massive club would base such a decision?

If that name came steeped in managerial success, yes.

But the game is full of former players who never made the grade.

Some are unarguably bigger names than Gerrard’s.

If you’d taken a poll of readers on this blog and others about whether Roy Keane, one of those bigger names, whose career trophy haul puts Gerrard’s to shame, was good enough to take the job at Parkhead the idea would have been scorned.

Big clubs do not think this way, not the super-clubs anyway.

The reason Gerrard is talked about as a future Liverpool boss is that some have, indeed, appointed former players against all logic and reason but that almost always turns out badly and the first appointment new owners make has to be a statement; Newcastle will not be looking at Scotland.

Lennon will probably not have a management career any longer. His failings are too well known, but then Gerrard’s own reputation is for spending money and not some great tactical nous. He’s also known for throwing his players under a bus.

All this will be known to people who will leave nothing to chance.

If Lennon isn’t on their short list (and the idea would be laughed out of every newsroom where they are currently discussing Gerrard, and rightly so) then the Ibrox underachiever certainly wont be.

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  • Barry says:

    Slippy “But”…
    By that I mean if you listen to any of his interviews, there’s always a “but”.

    “I don’t want to talk about other teams players, but”.

    “I’m not going to throw anyone under the bus, but”.

    “I can only speak for my players, but”.

    “I’ve got massive respect for their manager to be talking about their position, but”.

    You get the picture and just listen to any of his interviews which has the SMSM drooling and you’ll hear it for yourself.

    Ashley has given the Toon army years of pain, so why would the new owners want to start their tenure by appointing a glorified YTS??

  • Roonsa says:

    You’d get better football reporting in Viz than you do from the jokers in our MSM. I notice Hugh “Voice of Alzheimers” Keevins is having a laugh at the Slippy to Newcastle “rumours”. It’s actually quite funny. Give it a read.

  • Peterbrady says:

    They are sevco they have always beensevco and when sevco dienextentitywill be known as sevco2

  • SSMPM says:

    Got to say James you make a compelling case for Lennon. What a record of achievement and a better head to head prize winning record than ‘oops I did it again’. Not sure that Gerrard has taken on and beaten the might of Barcelona, Messi and all, as a manager either, also on Lennon’s record. HH

  • northamptontim says:

    all the top coaches in Europe and they’re going for Gerrard.
    some thing don’t sound right

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