Andy Walker goes after Peter Lawwell and Dermot Desmond with brutal Celtic verdict; this time he's right

By John McGinley

December 10, 2020

Former Celtic striker Andy Walker has slammed the club board for not putting in proper succession planning in the wake of Brendan Rodgers’ exit from the club, writing in his Sky Sports column.

Walker appears angry with the powers that be at Celtic Park for allowing Rangers to capitalise on the Hoops board’s own complacency.

Celtic are currently adrift at the top of the Scottish Premiership table and have conceded more goals in this year’s Europa League competition than any other team, despite being the top seeds in Group H.

As Neil Lennon’s second reign at Celtic Park hits the rocks, Walker feels that the club made a major error back in May 2019.

Speaking to Sky Sports, he said: “To set up to succeed, the Celtic board should have had as many as 6 potential men on a list that could’ve potentially taken over from Brendan Rodgers. Instead of offering their opinion on the likes of John McGinn and others, this was their most important task and they failed miserably.

“Bringing in Neil Lennon was a debatable but possibly understandable choice when Rodgers left for Leicester City. But surely only until the end of the season? The identikit of a successful winning mentality that Rodgers brought to the club over three years should have continued in his successor.

“Whatever magic Neil Lennon had in his previous successful spell as Celtic boss, I think you can see it’s not working now.

“It was lazy to appoint an out of work manager on a fraction of Rodgers salary. They thought they were too strong, too powerful and too good for everyone else and that they’d keep winning. That will be their legacy.”

Walker isn’t the most popular pundit with Celtic supporters. It’s not as if he ever misses an opportunity to criticise our players or the club itself.

However, I have to say; I do think the Sky Sports man is spot on here.

His comments actually chime with some of my own from earlier this week.

I wrote on Monday about Lawwell’s failure to look at alternative permanent options to Neil Lennon towards the end of the 2018/19 season.

He put any applicants in a file, never to be considered. It’s from that moment that I think there has been a significant complacency and regression at the club.

Celtic manager Neil Lennon / (Photo by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images)

Lennon deserved to at least be considered for the permanent post last May, considering the way he performed in the immediate aftermath of the Rodgers debacle. Still, he should have been one of many potential successors, not the only and obvious one.

Whenever Neil Lennon does leave, now or in the far future, it’s clear that club can’t make the same mistake again.

In other news, an exciting Celtic youngster has been spotted in Lennoxtown first-team training.