Neil Lennon’s progress in pushing this Celtic team to new heights has been mightily impressive, but there’s only one way to judge how far he has taken us.
Sure, Celtic may still be as tight to Rangers as they were 12 months ago. That doesn’t mean that things have gotten any better or any worse. Lennon simply has to be judged on how his team has developed over a period of time.
And therefore there’s no better place to look at our progress than to see where we were at this same stage last season.
Brendan Rodgers may have taken the Betfred Cup just as Neil has, but that’s the only stat that shows them as equals.
The improvement is in the numbers
Celtic now have 10 points better off after matchday 17 than they did a year ago. Our current points total reads at 46 from 17 games. Our only dropped points have come in a draw against Hibernian and a defeat to Livingston. As annoying as those two games were, it’s nothing compared to the blips of Rodgers’ final season.
Defeats to Hearts, Kilmarnock, and Hibernian had all occurred by 19th December 2018. St Mirren, Livingston, and Motherwell had also taken draws from Rodgers’ side.
And it’s not as if we were playing more entertaining football either. Rodgers’ team had scored 39 and shipped 10 domestically. Lennon, however, has watched his team rattle home 50 and concede just nine. We’ve also only failed to score in one domestic match all season. Rodgers’ side had already gone four games without finding the net.
The improvement is there in black and white. We’re playing with an energy, confidence, and maturity that just wasn’t there last season. The football in Rodgers’ final year wasn’t pretty, and we really did have Lennon to thank for helping guide us to the treble in our time of need.
The Leicester manager’s achievements as Celtic boss can’t be taken away from him. But this idea that he was some kind of football guru who had us playing majestic football throughout his tenure should be eased. The football had gotten stale in the third season, and teams were finding us out.
For those reasons alone, Lennon has vastly improved the club in that department. Hopefully, come the end of the season, he has the trophies to show for it.
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