When Neil Lennon returned to Celtic in a caretaker role, it stood to reason he was coming in alone and wouldn’t be bringing his usual entourage with him.
It was a short gig at the time and the Celtic manager navigated the season out under tricky circumstances to win the treble. After that, he was offered the full-time job for better or worse by Peter Lawwel.
The famous story goes Neil was offered the job in the showers at Hampden by the Celtic CEO and while the manager didn’t say yes straight away, a statement got released not half an hour after the treble treble had been lifted.
Peter saw his opportunity to bring in a manager who would not be combative with himself or the board, a manager who would be grateful for the opportunity to manage Celtic.
We saw with Brendan Rodgers, Peter didn’t like having his feet held to the fire and the relationship between the manager and the CEO was fractured by the time Brendan snuck out the back door. Roy Keane wrote in his book about nearly becoming the Celtic manager before Ronny Deila got the job. Dermot Desmond wanted the Manchester United legend but Peter didn’t.
Keane wrote:
“I got a call: would I go and have a chat with Dermot Desmond? I’d met him once before, in 2005, when I was signing to play for Celtic.
“At the end of the chat, he said: ‘The job is yours’.
“I got in touch with Celtic’s chief executive, Peter Lawwell, and asked him to give me a ballpark figure before negotiations got going.
“He mentioned a figure and he said: ‘But that’s it’. Paul told me there were a lot of clauses in the contract that he wasn’t happy with. And the figures were non-negotiable.
He then went onto say the CEO wouldn’t let him pick his own assistant and Peter had Ronny Deila lined up for that role.
“They were asking if I’d be assistant to Keane. That would have been interesting of course. He’s a fantastic personality.” Ronny told Sunsport a few years back.
“The idea was to get to understand the culture in Scotland and understand what the club is all and when that didn’t happen I was ready to be No.1.”
Peter put obstacles in the way of Roy taking the Celtic job and wanted to micromanage the former Irish international, who under no uncertain terms wasn’t having it. If you’re going to be the one to take the heat if things don’t work out, you need to be confident you’ve done it your way and nobody else’s.
The biggest red flag for Celtic fans was seeing the board appoint Neil Lennon’s backroom staff for him. John Kennedy and Damien Duff were the men and Neil didn’t have a say in it. The trio did well last season but it was alarming the manager wasn’t allowed to bring in the men he trusted. Having others by your side when things are going good is easy, however, when things are going bad and your own job is on the line, you wonder if they’re giving you their all.
Gavin Strachan came into the club on a board recommendation, Neil Lennon didn’t seek him out, nor did he get the chance to bring in Garry Parker, his long time assistant.
The coaching staff isn’t the be-all and end-all but it’s a symptom and a big example of what goes on behind the scenes. It speaks to a bigger issue of Lawwell micromanaging the team; from coaches to transfers. Sometimes it feels like he is a director of football rather than a CEO.
I think all the ‘support’ for the manager comes down to the fact that Lawell doesn’t know WTF to do about the current situation. No idea who would be a suitable replacement or how to get him in. So we we get the support and confidence drivel, lets do nothing and hope everything is OK.
Also think it’s despicable what Lawell is doing. He’s trying to cover his own ass at Lenny’s expense. He is afraid to do anything in case he makes things worse. Then he will be solely responsible so he’s hanging Lenny out to dry instead. He is a bigger rat than BR ever will be.
Peter (Turd)Lawell
Throw Lenny under the bus just Aslong as it doesn’t effect Lawells Bonuses