Alan Stubbs believes protesters have helped keep Lennon in his Celtic post

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BBC pundit Alan Stubbs believes Neil Lennon would’ve been sacked as Celtic manager had it not been for Sunday’s protesters.

Celtic slipped to a dismal 2-0 home defeat to Ross County that saw the club trundle out of the Betfred Cup at the first hurdle. The Hoops’ performances have been at a dreadfully low level since the start of the season, and Celtic have now lost their last four home matches in all competitions.

The result against County sparked mass demonstrations outside Celtic Park despite Glasgow being in lockdown. The group that made their way down to Parkhead was left seething by the dismal loss to the Staggies, and it looked all the while that Lennon’s job was untenable.

But Stubbs incredibly believes that it was indeed those protests that were designed to spark action in the boardroom which has left the Hoops refusing to act on the manager.

As quoted by the Scottish Sun, Stubbs said: “I think the scenes outside Celtic Park on Sunday night have probably kept Neil in a job. The club may have acted otherwise but it’s like they don’t want to be seen to react to the anger.

“It’s funny because, when I was outside in the car park after the game, Michael Stewart and I were talking about it.

“One of the things I said was that I thought there had been fewer sackings generally in football this season and I put that down to the fact there are no supporters in stadiums shouting abuse at managers and directors.”

Club can’t be deciding its future based on this

You can understand it to an extent. Nobody wants to be forced into action by someone else. You want to make your own business decisions based on what you believe is the right direction for that business to take.

However, everyone knows the right decision was for Celtic to bring someone fresh in. It feels like two fingers are being stuck up by the board towards the supporters here. If Dermot Desmond and Peter Lawwell were going to pull the plug on Lennon only for the fans to change their mind, that’s absolutely ludicrous.

Yes, you don’t want violent behaviour or protests to be rewarded as a business leader. But when the decision is so obvious and it’s one you may even have agreed with beforehand, it’s incredibly poor not to follow through on it.

It feels as though the board is sticking two fingers up to the supporters here. It’s a “we’ll do what we like” kind of mentality that totally goes against everything Celtic should be about as a club.

Neil Lennon should only be the Celtic manager if Neil Lennon deserves to be the Celtic manager. Many supporters aren’t convinced that’s the case, and if Desmond in particular was the same, why on earth is Neil still in charge?

This feels like a decision made to annoy the protesters more than what they believe to be for the good of the club. Hopefully that wasn’t the case.

In other news, a report in the Scottish Sun has outlined another ridiculous reason for why Celtic may have stuck by Lennon.