NEIL LENNON has been talking about Eddie Hopwe potentially being the man to replace him at Celtic.
The Irishman believes the manager has the credentials to be good at the job. However, he warns about the culture shock involved in leaving a town like Bournemouth to come and manage in Glasgow.
Neil Lennon was well versed in it when he first took the Celtic job on having played at the club for a good chunk of his career.
Eddie will have to adapt to being in the limelight more, scrutinised more and will be under pressure to succeed from the off.
Speaking to RecordSport, Neil Lennon said:
“It’s quite a culture shock and if we’re hypothetically talking about Eddie he’s coming from a real family club like Bournemouth.
“He’s lived there and worked there all his career.
“I think it would be a coup for Celtic to get someone like Eddie, I think he’s a top coach.
“His style of play suits a club like Celtic, he’d be ingratiated with the Celtic fans very quickly if he can adopt that style that he had at Bournemouth.
“In the Championship and then in the first formative years in the Premier League they were great to watch.
“But off the field, away from the training ground, life’s going to be very, very different to what he was used to at Bournemouth.
“There’s going to be a lot of speculation, a lot of media interest and obviously a lot of interest from supporters.
“Glasgow’s not a huge city but you’ve got two humongous clubs there and the rivalry is thousands of years old – and it’ll go on for the next thousand years as well.
“So it’s exciting, but it’ll take a bit of adapting for him there’s no question about that.”
The former Celtic manager does have a point. It will be up to people behind the scenes at the club to help Eddie out if he does come in as the Celtic boss.
Giving him a crash course in what’s needed not just on the field but off it.
Celtic fans are demanding and they will want to see a new manager come in and start to build straight away. There will be no downtime for the new Hoops boss.
From what we’ve heard about Eddie and seen from a distance, the Englishman treats being a manager as a lifestyle more than a job. He lives and breathes the game and the challenge of building Celtic back up must surely excite him.
