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IF Peter Lawwell isn’t working out a short list of possible replacements for Neil Lennon, he’s not doing his job.
Lennon is losing matches and the faith of his followers.
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In any other season, Lawwell could sit still and ignore the noise.
This not. Not with the unbridled fever of the ten in a row.
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Lose at Pittodrie and Lawwell will have a full-scale revolt on his hands. When managers feel the heat, the manager usually pays the price.
Martin O’Neill used to say that he was only three losses away from a crisis. That’s the way it is in the big clubs.
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Lennon is in that movie in Pittodrie. Defeat in the Northeast will see a clamor for your head.
You could argue that that’s unfair for a man who beat Steven Gerrard for the title last season.
When Celtic lost to the Rangers before winter break, Gerrard was looking good for the championship.
Instead, Lennon returned from Dubai with a new game plan, while the Rangers melted during filming.
Who knows, the Rangers could fold again if they find themselves in sight of the winning post, but it doesn’t seem likely.
And if it did happen, would the Celts be good enough to take advantage? Not in the current form.
The bottom line is that Lennon’s team has been poor all season.
Crushing Hamilton and Ross County means nothing if you’re not winning the games that matter.
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Ferencvaros and the Old Firm game were the two that counted. At a time when the club is burning money, Champions League money would have been invaluable.
Instead, the Celts produced a repeat of the Cluj disaster. How many times will Lennon’s side fall for the old dope rope trick?
The fact that Lennon blamed the distracted players smelled of desperation.
If he had already identified those who were working on his ticket, they shouldn’t have been anywhere near his team roster for Ferencvaros.
He had the longest transfer window in history to hit his team.
And when only two of his six signings were at the club early enough to start against the Hungarians, why are you talking about hiring the club?
Based on the evidence from last Saturday, the Rangers have put together a stronger team. Remember, Gerrard started without Ryan Jack, Joe Aribo, and Ianis Hagi and still controlled the game from midfield. Even taking into account the lack of players, I have never seen a Lennon team so passive. And if he admitted that he was wrong in his form against Rangers, why do the same again against Milan?
Leigh Griffiths and Albian Ajeti are not fit enough to start against Rangers, but are they okay to go against Milan a few days later?
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Lennon doesn’t seem any closer to finding a team or a way to jump-start the Celts season and he can’t blame the experts for that.
Do you really have time to dig up Gary Breen and Charlie Nicholas when your team is all over the place?
Even Maurice Ross, a secondary coach at Motherwell, was slapped.
Lennon should be above all that.
His critics believe that he was the cheap option for Lawwell when Brendan Rodgers left.
I don’t buy that.
He was the perfect choice to bring Celtic to the line and claim the number eight title. He knew the club, he knew the league, he knew the pressures of work.
But having secured numbers eight and nine, fans should wonder why number ten seems to be in jeopardy.
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Why were the Rangers, after the liquidation and four years in the lower leagues, allowed to close the gap?
What good is it to display the balance sheet every year if you don’t use that wealth to crush the opposition?
Lawwell and his board have allowed the Rangers to return to the game when the Ibrox club should be a smudge in the rearview mirror.
Equally unforgivable has been the disappearance of Celtic in European competition.
THE AGONY OF LENNY Celtic boss Lennon admits that the past week has been one of the most difficult in the management
Recently, Dermot Desmond claimed that the current team would beat O’Neill’s team that raced close to Porto in Seville. God help the club if he was serious.
Either way, Celtic should beat clubs like Ferencvaros, Cluj, AEK Athens, Malmo and Legia Warsaw. How many millions of the Champions League have been lost losing to clubs with a fraction of the Celts’ resources?
But the search for The Ten has left punters blind to European failure. If given the option, some would take the Premiership title this season before winning the Champions League.
Lennon was downstairs when he won the title in 2012. If you want to complete the journey, you need to improve your game quickly.
Not surprisingly, Aberdeen President Dave Cormack criticized the Scottish government’s refusal to allow 1,000 fans into Pittodrie.
Holyrood City Hall allows passengers to rub elbows on planes and workouts in gyms, but masked soccer fans can’t sit six feet away outdoors.
Crazy, when it has already emerged, no positive cases resulted from Dons’ first test event earlier this season. If you can find time between TV appearances, I’d love for famous professor Jason Leitch to do it.
I’m not sure if Dundee’s John Nelms was in Tynecastle last Friday night to watch Hearts attack his Dens team.
From what I know it could have changed addresses in the middle of the M9 and ended up in someone’s spam folder.
Seriously, I’m not a fan of Ann Budge, but if anyone deserved a post-game cheer in the boardroom, it was the Matriarch of Hearts. If revenge is a dish best served cold, Budge’s came straight out of the fridge.
WHEN Celtic’s Boli Bolingoli and Aberdeen Eight broke the SPFL Covid guidelines, a precedent was set. Neither club had to lose points.
So spare me the idea that Neil Doncaster’s band can change the rules now. In their desperation to finish the season, there is talk of 3-0 losses to clubs unable to deliver due to Covid.
If they make those 12 games in the season, they should change our league name to The Mickey Mouse Premiership. I’m with Brian Rice, who believes that clubs should play four games a week if that’s what it takes.
I CANNOT say that my first impressions of Ryan Porteous were favorable.
Watching him dive into silly tackles, he seemed like a kid trying to be a tough man. Now a fixture for Jack Ross, the center-back is maturing into a suitable player. His decision to donate a percentage of his salary to an organization that fights poverty, discrimination and gender inequality shows that he too is a suitable person.
SIGN of the times when Manchester United announces an annual loss of 474 million pounds and causes no ripple.
How do you accumulate a debt of 500 million pounds with Financial Fair Play? With the coronavirus wiping out United’s huge game day revenue, annual revenue is down £ 120 million.
Meanwhile, the club’s American owners, the Glazers, still managed to collect £ 20 million in dividends. Is it any wonder they are rarely shown at Old Trafford?
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