Davie Provan suggests Neil Lennon knew Celtic career was over in January

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Davie Provan has suggested that Neil Lennon knew his Celtic career was up in January.

The former Parkhead boss officially resigned last week. However, reports from Tuesday night claimed that Lennon was actually sacked following an emergency board meeting [Daily Record].

For many supporters, this was a decision that should’ve happened months ago. After January’s 1-0 loss to Rangers at Ibrox, it was largely believed that the league was all but over. That, therefore, left Lennon’s position untenable.

However, he continued to stay on until late February as he watched Celtic lose to the likes of St Mirren and Ross County respectively. And Provan has a theory as to why that was the case.

Speaking in his Scottish Sun column, he said: “ I wouldn’t feel too sorry for Neil Lennon on parting company with Celtic.

“Lenny’s had his contract paid up and won’t be short of media work until his next shift in the dugout. Neil is savvy enough to have known his time was up after defeat in January’s Old Firm game. He’d have been crazy to walk then without a pay-off. In the meantime, it looks like Celtic have no succession plan with John Kennedy now in temporary charge.

“With a manager, chief executive and sporting director to be found double-quick, new supremo Dominic McKay already has his work cut out. All that before he gets around to Peter Lawwell’s statue.”

Davie Provan and his Neil Lennon verdict makes sense; but it feels wrong to speculate morals

It’s an interesting theory from Provan. It’s also one that a large number of fans will no doubt agree with too. But for me it feels far too dirty to speculate on.

We’ll all have our own opinions on why Lennon stayed in the job. A lot of those opinions will be centred around financial incentives. That’s fair enough, but I never truly did feel the title was over as early as many.

After the loss at Ibrox at the start of the year, I still felt it could’ve been clawed back. We effectively found ourselves 10 points behind. We needed Rangers to draw twice and then it was back in our hands again. Rangers have since drawn twice. It was all about whether Celtic could go on a spectacular run of 19 consecutive wins. We then slipped up in each of our next three matches.

So it could’ve been the case that Lennon genuinely believed the situation could’ve been retrieved. At least until the first few slip-ups post-Dubai. Celtic had opportunities to eat into Rangers’ gap that he would’ve been looking forward to.

Granted, that wouldn’t explain why the former Hoops boss stayed on after the losses to Saints and Ross County. Even so, it feels unfair to hit him with an accusation that he stayed for cash. Not without knowing for sure.

Whatever the reason, his reputation has suffered massively for it.

In other news, Derek McInnes appears to have been watching a different Celtic game last week.