Supporting Neil Lennon is all we can do.

There's no doubting, looking at it with strictly logical and pragmatic eyes, the Neil Lennon appointment looks at best a massive gamble and at worst an imminent disaster. However it will be spun by Celtic, to any football fan outwith Celtic it is a curious decision. The precedent for a rookie manager being appointed at a club the size of Celtic and being successful is limited. Moreso on the back of two disastrous footballing seasons provoking a need for massive squad upheaval and against a veteran manager who domestically is one of the most successful in your bitter rival's history.

A myth has often been propogated by sections of our support in the last few years that any manager worth their salt could come in a sweep up the rotten remains of Rangers Football Club, propelling Celtic into a new era of domination while Rangers scrabble around trying to fight it out for third or fourth place. This isn't true. You cannot underestimate Rangers FC. There can be no mistake, Neil Lennon's task next year is massive. It is harder than John Barnes', Martin O'Neill's, Gordon Strachan's and Tony Mowbray's job was coming into the club.

This isn't to say Lennon has no redeeming qualities at all to be a successful Celtic manager, it's just that they are either wishful thinking or speculation. For example we have to hope the 8 game league unbeaten streak is a sign of things to come rather than the Semi-Final disaster at Hampden. We have to hope the words Lennon spoke on the radio to Chick Young in the wake of said disaster were the words to carry us forward and not the words of an unburdened man shooting from the hip because he could. We have to hope Neil Lennon, a winner on the park in the peak of his career, can somehow transfer that mentality to a squad of players who at times, if we're being honest, just look like they can't be bothered.



For a squad needing major surgery, it seems odd a manager would be appointed who is entirely untested in the transfer market. We are venturing into the unknown here, little can be written about or speculated about how successful or not Lennon will be in this aspect. All we know that either the powers that be at Celtic have been wowed and won over by Lennon's thinking in all areas of the team and club, or they are throwing their dice into the dark and hoping for sixes.

One thing Neil Lennon will excel with is handling the press. It's no secret he has friends within the Scottish sports media. I have been very impressed with the way he has handled the scrutiny so far. There should be no question that he has the mentality and strength to deal with them if an occasion arises where they turn on him, which when dealing with the fickle Scottish sports media there's a high chance of. Though as much as this seemed like the main talking when Mowbray was in charge, it isn't as big an aspect of being a successful Celtic manager as most newpapers would like you to believe, Mowbray let them walk all over him, Lennon won't.



It is also worth noting that although Lennon is vastly inexperienced in being a football manager, I can think of very few people available for the role that has the rich depth of experience he has of Celtic Football Club and all that goes with it, being the fans, the history and the passion. He was a player for seven years, a captain for two. He has watched Gordon Strachan win trophies and he has watched him going wrong in the eyes of many fans. He was there when Tony Mowbray made a multitude of mistakes, when he lost the dressing room and the respect of the Celtic fans. If he can go halfway towards learning from their mistakes, it's halfway to where we need to be.

At the time of writing, it is still unclear whether Stuart Baxter is going to be employed in some sort of mentoring role for Lennon. In a way I don't think it matters too much, I have little belief he will have much say on the day to day decisions and I'm confident he will strictly be moral/technical support for decisions Neil makes. One thing obvious is the ties he has with a footballing market Celtic would do well to tap, Scandinavia. Whether this is the beginning of some sort of formal partnership with sections of Scandinavian football remains to be seen. That would go some way to making some sort of sense of a truly bizarre appointment in Baxter.


In my opinion, although it will be very hard for some not to feel initially negative or at least let down about the hand we've been dealt with this appointment, going forward the most important thing we as fans can do is to ensure we don't fall into the easy trap of being negative for the sakes of being negative. It is most important to support Neil Lennon, Celtic manager. It would be dangerous to condemn the decision from the start. If the fans can bring a feelgood factor back to the ground, if we can hope and believe and be positive about the appointment it will most definitely help the whole club. There ARE chinks of light coming from Neil Lennon and we can only judge his appointment truly with time and hindsight. Until then he needs our backing because it's the only constructive action we can take right now.