The lack of interest in Neil Lennon is mind-boggling

[ian1964 10,413]

By Alan Brazil, 21 September 2014 9.00am.

 

 

 

It’s one of the biggest mysteries in football.

 

Why on earth aren’t clubs beating a path to Neil Lennon’s door?

 

Since the Irishman left Celtic in the summer, the likes of Norwich City, Southampton, Huddersfield, Crystal Palace, Cardiff City and now Fulham have all ditched their manager.

 

Lennon has been linked with all those clubs – and has expressed an interest in the other two – but he’s still out of a job.

 

For me, that’s bonkers. This is a man who has masterminded a Celtic victory over Barcelona in the Champions League, and taken the Hoops to the last 16 of the same tournament.

 

He’s a man who has won three League titles and two Scottish Cups as a manager. He’s also a guy who, for my money, has one of the best football brains around. But still nobody seems particularly interested. It’s mind-boggling.

 

It would be easy to argue that the reason for English clubs’ reluctance to back Lenny is the lack of credibility Scottish football has south of the border.

 

It’s very sad, but it’s a fact that people in England look down their noses at the game in Scotland.

 

But if that is the main reason for Neil Lennon STILL being a passenger on the managerial merry-go-round four months after leaving Celtic, then why on earth was Paul Hartley coveted by Cardiff City?

 

No disrespect to Paul, who I think is a very good, up-and-coming manager. But his CV isn’t as impressive as Neil’s at this point in time.

 

Yet it was the Dundee manager’s name at the top of Vincent Tan’s list of potential replacements for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, not Neil Lennon’s.

 

After Hartley knocked back the Bluebirds, Lenny emerged amongst the front-runners, but I can’t believe he wasn’t leading the pack from the very beginning – especially given his relatively high profile in the media these days.

 

There was a time where you probably could have said Neil had a bit of an image problem.

 

Touchline altercations, being sent to the stands, touchline bans. All of those things were fairly regular occurrences, particularly early in his managerial career.

 

But in his increasingly regular media appearances, I think Neil has gone a huge way towards proving he’s not THAT person.

 

He’s on TV on a near-weekly basis, and I’ve had him on my radio programme plenty of times. He has always represented himself brilliantly.

 

By managing his profile the way he has, he has positioned himself as a thoughtful, articulate student of the game, rather than a touchline-prowling firebrand.

 

That transformation, taken in tandem with his achievements as Celtic boss, ought to make him a prime candidate for plenty of Premier League clubs – and EVERY Championship side.

 

It really shocks me that it hasn’t turned out that way yet. But I believe that eventually, the tide will turn in Neil’s favour.

 

All it will take is one club to take a chance and appoint him as manager and I think the folly of all the clubs who ignored him this summer will be exposed.

 

Whether we’ll be able to add Cardiff and Fulham to that list or not, we’ll find out soon enough.

 

http://www.sundaypost.com/sport/columnists/alan-brazil/the-lack-of-interest-in-neil-lennon-is-mind-boggling-1.586211

[ian1964 10,413]

Former Celtic boss Neil Lennon hits out at Ronny Deila for questioning the fitness of team he left behind.

 

FORMER Celtic boss Neil Lennon took offence to suggestions made by current Hoops boss Deila that the squad he had inherited from the Northern Irishman were unfit and overweight.

 

NEIL LENNON has taken a swipe at Celtic boss Ronny Deila for questioning the fitness of the Parkhead players he left behind.

 

The current Hoops gaffer has radically changed the diet at their Lennoxtown training base.

 

Deila now demands they eat lunch together and has banned fizzy drinks. Last month he ordered his players to reduce their body fat and become fitter.

 

But Lennon believes it’s disrespectful for a new manager at any club to accuse the squad of being out of shape. Without mentioning the Norwegian, who replaced him at Celtic in the summer, Lennon said: “All you hear now is that you need to ban chips, tomato sauce, fizzy drinks. Yeah, because that makes them better players.

 

“It’s disrespectful when a new manager comes in and immediately says, ‘The players aren’t fit enough’.

 

“I didn’t monitor what players were eating in the canteen. You have a set diet and the food at Celtic was top class. See if I see a player happy and full of running, I just let him carry on.

 

“Psychologically, the player is happy so if he wants to have a Coca-Cola, let him have one. Some players carry weight because it suits them. It gives them a little bit more power.

 

“Gazza used to hold people off because he was a little bit heavier, with a change of pace. John Hartson was built like a brick outhouse but he scored loads of goals. He wasn’t the most athletic but was a brilliant footballer. He scored in big games in the Champions League. Everyone’s different.”

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/f...lennon-4297457

Edit/Delete Message

[Scott7 5,163]

Sense in that last paragraph.

[RANGERRAB 3,258]

What respectable club would seriously want someone like Lennon as their team manager?

[Super Cooper 0]

The mhedias darling, from Sky to BBC, they are all desperately trying to get him a job. The fact is, he was hopeless, not quite as clueless as ours but still never manager material.

[barca72 440]

He doesn't have Mjaltby to set up a team and explain strategy to him any more. No English team needs 'thunder' in its crowd.

It's funny how Scottish football is a lot less rancorous this season.

[Bearman 9]

http://www.sundaypost.com/sport/columnists/alan-brazil/the-lack-of-interest-in-neil-lennon-is-mind-boggling-1.586211

 

THE SUNDAY POST!!!

 

Yes Neil Lennon is a decent bloke.

[Ser Barristan Selmy 222]

It’s very sad, but it’s a fact that people in England look down their noses at the game in Scotland.

I wonder why that is? Could it be the fact that most teams in the 4th tier would give SPL sides a doing.

[Ser Barristan Selmy 222]

Former Celtic boss Neil Lennon hits out at Ronny Deila for questioning the fitness of team he left behind.

 

FORMER Celtic boss Neil Lennon took offence to suggestions made by current Hoops boss Deila that the squad he had inherited from the Northern Irishman were unfit and overweight.

 

NEIL LENNON has taken a swipe at Celtic boss Ronny Deila for questioning the fitness of the Parkhead players he left behind.

 

The current Hoops gaffer has radically changed the diet at their Lennoxtown training base.

 

Deila now demands they eat lunch together and has banned fizzy drinks. Last month he ordered his players to reduce their body fat and become fitter.

 

But Lennon believes it’s disrespectful for a new manager at any club to accuse the squad of being out of shape. Without mentioning the Norwegian, who replaced him at Celtic in the summer, Lennon said: “All you hear now is that you need to ban chips, tomato sauce, fizzy drinks. Yeah, because that makes them better players.

 

“It’s disrespectful when a new manager comes in and immediately says, ‘The players aren’t fit enough’.

 

“I didn’t monitor what players were eating in the canteen. You have a set diet and the food at Celtic was top class. See if I see a player happy and full of running, I just let him carry on.

 

“Psychologically, the player is happy so if he wants to have a Coca-Cola, let him have one. Some players carry weight because it suits them. It gives them a little bit more power.

 

“Gazza used to hold people off because he was a little bit heavier, with a change of pace. John Hartson was built like a brick outhouse but he scored loads of goals. He wasn’t the most athletic but was a brilliant footballer. He scored in big games in the Champions League. Everyone’s different.”

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/f...lennon-4297457

Edit/Delete Message

The insidious one doesn't do irony clearly.

 

[ian1964 10,413]

Lack of interest must be a concern for Neil Lennon.

 

It WAS four months ago today that Neil Lennon announced he was stepping down as Celtic manager. He could surely never have imagined that he would still be ‘between jobs’ at this stage of the season.

 

When Lennon left the Scottish champions on 22 May, he would have been full of both anticipation and expectation of an exciting new challenge in English football. If not in the Premier League, then certainly with an ambitious Championship club. He has been disabused of that notion on a startlingly consistent basis.

 

Four top-flight vacancies in England have been filled without Lennon even getting a sniff of them since he went onto the job market – at West Bromwich Albion, Tottenham, Southampton and Crystal Palace.

 

In the Championship, seven clubs have changed their managers in the same period – Blackpool, Nottingham Forest, Brighton, Charlton, Leeds United (twice), Huddersfield Town and Watford.

 

Lennon’s name regularly makes its way onto the bookmakers’ lists for every post which becomes available but so far any money punted on him has failed to deliver a return.

 

Speaking at the weekend, Lennon expressed his interest in the latest vacancies in England’s second tier at Fulham and Cardiff City. Yet caretaker boss Kit Symons appears to be in pole position for the Craven Cottage vacancy, while Cardiff look to have switched their sights from Dundee manager Paul Hartley to Russell Slade at Leyton Orient.

 

With the greatest of respect to both Hartley and Slade, it must be a source of genuine concern – if not outright alarm – to Lennon that he is not being considered ahead of them, even allowing for the unpredictable manner in which Cardiff are run under eccentric owner Vincent Tan.

 

As the caption underneath his name during his appearance on Match of the Day on Saturday night reminded us, Lennon won five major honours during his four years as Celtic manager. It begs the obvious question of just how devalued a currency success at the top level in Scottish football is in the wider managerial picture.

 

Lennon’s struggle to find a suitable job south of the Border may be down to the drastically-diminished status of Scottish football overall, rather than to any deeply analysed judgement of his own capabilities.

 

There was a time when the serial collection of trophies in charge of either Celtic of Rangers was a passport into English football for any manager. Even in relatively recent Old Firm history, it was a fairly regular career path.

 

Jock Stein was regularly coveted by the biggest English clubs of all during his all-conquering time at Celtic, albeit his eventual stint at Leeds United was brief and unfulfilling, while Billy 
McNeill enjoyed a stature which earned him spells in charge of Manchester City and Aston Villa.

 

Two of Lennon’s predecessors and mentors at Celtic, Martin O’Neill and Gordon Strachan, also had little difficulty in finding work in England after calling time on their respective tenures at Parkhead. Perhaps the crucial difference in their cases, however, was that they had both already forged respected managerial reputations in the English top flight prior to their stints at Celtic and could trade on those.

 

But O’Neill’s relatively underwhelming reigns at Aston Villa and Sunderland on his return to England, along with Strachan’s self-confessed abject failure at Middlesbrough, have perhaps had a negative influence on how much credibility a successful Celtic manager is given among the English football fraternity.

 

Lennon has remained a highly 
visible presence during what is proving a lengthier managerial sabbatical than he would have wished. To the surprise of no-one in the media who dealt with him during his time in Scotland, he is proving to be an excellent pundit on both radio and television.

 

Analytical, articulate, intelligent and never a proponent of the cliche, the 43-year-old has been a hugely welcome addition to the Match of the Day stable. But while offering his opinion on the game could comfortably sustain him for the foreseeable future, Lennon will certainly not be content to remain on a sofa in a television studio. Those closest to him confirm he is itching to get back onto a training ground and into a technical area to prove the ability which saw him guide Celtic into the last 16 of the Champions League just two years ago can be translated into further 
notable achievements as a manager in England.

 

But unless Fulham and Cardiff City suddenly turn their attentions in his direction, that ambition seems no closer to being fulfilled any time soon. Placing his situation into even sharper perspective is that managers of either lengthy and/or recent English Premier League experience – including David Moyes, Tony Pulis, Chris Hughton, Steve Clarke and Tim Sherwood – are also on the lookout for a fresh 
opportunity.

 

It is a sobering state of affairs not just for Lennon himself, but for Scottish football in general. Seldom, if ever, has winning trophies in Scotland counted for so little elsewhere.

 

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/english/lack-of-interest-must-be-a-concern-for-neil-lennon-1-3548257