Former Celtic man Davie Provan has labeled Neil Lennon the “junior partner” in the relationship between himself and Peter Lawwell – and stated that Brendan Rodgers had more power at Parkhead.
Lennon’s revolution this season has seen a total of 10 players come in during the summer. A further two arrived in January as the squad was given a major overhaul despite winning the treble-treble last season.
The Hoops boss has largely been rewarded too. Celtic are 12 points clear at the top of the Premiership and have already won the Betfred Cup. We topped a European group for the first time in our history, as well as winning in Italy in another club first.
However, being knocked out by Copenhagen in the round of 32 seems to have brought a bit of an over-reaction. And speaking in his Scottish Sun column, Provan stated that Rodgers had more influence on the board than Lennon.
“The era when Brendan Rodgers could put the board up against the wall for a proper player has gone. Neil has less power than Brendan. While Rodgers would take Lawwell on, going above his head at times, Lennon is the junior partner in that relationship.
“Safe to say Neil’s gig is more difficult than Brendan’s. When Rodgers left for Leicester a year ago, Lenny was taking the microphone from Sinatra.
“With a Champions League campaign looming Neil needed some top players. Instead, he got Boli Bolingoli, Luca Connell and Hatem Abd Elhamed.”
When did Rodgers bring “top players” to Celtic?
This idea that Lennon is some sort of puppet is incredibly insulting to a manager who has won a sensational 40 of his 50 games in charge since the summer (Soccerbase).
Where is the evidence that Rodgers would’ve had the board “up against the wall” for a proper player? Last January we brought in three loan players. Jeremy Toljan and Oliver Burke were also hardly big-names. Go back a year before that and it was the likes of Marvin Compper and Jack Hendry coming through the door. Hardly mind-blowing signings.
Rodgers also wasted plenty of money with some of his signings too. The likes of Compper, Hendry, Eboue Kouassi, and Charly Musonda are easily forgotten about. You can’t have a go at Lennon’s position at Parkhead just because his centre-backs made some errors in one game.
It’s not as if we’re faltering in every competition we’re in. It’s frustrating to hear some think these players should be like robots. Celtic, over the course of February, played a total of eight games. How many did we lose? One. That’s superb considering the run of fixtures we had and the away games that were on the fixture card.
There’s nothing to suggest that Lennon doesn’t have much influence on the board. After all, even if the signings haven’t made an impact yet, didn’t Celtic still spend over £5million on them? (Transfermarkt). Money was still spent.
And all of this simply because Copenhagen knocked us out of Europe. Let’s not forget Rodgers’ Euro record at Celtic. We scraped past the Europa League group stages last year before going out to Valencia in the last-32. If anything, our performances improved this season.
What do you make of Provan’s assertions? Does Lennon have “less power” than Rodgers? Where’s the evidence to back that up? Let us know your verdict in the discussion forum below.
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