Neil Lennon is under pressure as Celtic manager right now, the boss has overseen a poor start to the season and it has many supporters looking for a change in management at the club.
There are plenty of people who believe standards have slipped dramatically since the days of Brendan Rodgers and while we can’t speak to that too much at present we have been giving a massive insight into Neil Lennon’s first run as Celtic boss and you have to hope the Irishman has picked up better habits the second time around.
GIGPOD interviewed former Neil Lennon signing Kelvin Wilson and covered a variety of topics with the ex-Celtic player.
During the interview Wilson hits on the following points:
- Lack of opposition knowledge
- No professional diets implemented
- Was shocked at the healthy food Nottingham Forest made the players eat after his Celtic stint.
- Very little shape training, more fitness drills.
This was not an interview where Kelvin was trying to discredit Neil, before anyone thinks there was an axe to grind. The Englishman was quite complimentary of the Celtic manager and enjoyed his time at the club.
“I can probably recall maybe once or twice doing shape on the training ground with Neil Lennon.
“It was always drills, fitness was massive. He loved running us so we were a fit team.
“But we all wanted to play for Neil. And we all wanted success ourselves, we wanted to win titles, and be playing in the Champions League.
“I think as a player you have got to want that. But what I am seeing – and I don’t know, I don’t speak to many of the lads, I am not around it – but it is like a lot of the lads are playing for themselves. Playing for a move. Or playing because they want to get out.”
“And that wasn’t on the training pitch, it was on the video.
“We would get to the team hotel, whether that was home or away, and we would go down to dinner at 7.
“We would eat dinner and while we were eating dinner he would get their last game up on the projector and play it.
“So we would be at dinner watching bits of it. Then he would stop it and go through a few bits of it, but it was only 20 minutes of it, hardly anything.
“And I think that was because he was so confident in his players.”
“Lenny didn’t really care what we had. Although if performances on the park weren’t going well, then I am sure he would have looked at that.
“We ate what we want, but it wasn’t McDonald’s and Burger Kings, things like that. It was steak and chips and chicken, things like that.
“It was good food, but I got a bit of a reality check when I went to Forest, going into the canteen.
“I was thinking ‘I don’t want to eat this’, because it was food that was tasteless and wasn’t nice but they were really big on the nutrition side.
“At Celtic, you could eat what you want, you could have a can of Irn Bru at dinner, things like that!
“But I think it is different now, different with players. Times are changing for the better in that sense.”
On Celtic’s current form, Wilson admitted it has been unfortunate:
“It is unfortunate that it is the ten in a row season where this is happening.
“I have no doubt that Neil Lennon knows what he is going to do.
“But it is not always about the manager, it is down to the players. And the players have to do it.
“Lenny can only do so much on the training ground and so much in meetings. And show the lads what it means to do. It is down to the lads to go out and do it.
“And the games that I have watched they haven’t really – they have been really poor.
“I only know Browny and James Forrest, Callum McGregor, Tom Rogic, they are the only ones who are still there from when I was there. But when I was there it was a really, really tight group we had.
“We socialised a lot and the lads wouldn’t rush away from the training ground. The lads would be there all day – even after training in the games room.
“Back then no-one was desperate for a move.
“If you notice, all those players who left back then, they left because bids came in for them, because of their performances, not because they wanted to leave.
“They were playing unbelievable week in week out, so that was obviously going to bring teams in who wanted to take them.
“They weren’t playing well because they wanted a move, they were playing well because they wanted to win the league. Or they wanted to be top goalscorers like Gary Hooper, wanted to play Champions League, win cups.
“There weren’t players thinking ‘I want to get a move’. I think that is the difference with the team I played in.”
Some of this stuff is very old school and we have to reiterate we hope this is nowhere near what’s going on at Lennoxtown nowadays.
The lack of preparation is frightening. Neil Lennon’s teams have always relied on individual brilliance rather than a collective team effort and it’s clear why.
Neil was a student of Matin O’Neill and he done things very similar to what Kelvin describes but this was a time when you could get away with that; you just can’t today!
