Neil Lennon’s dominance over Hearts as Celtic manager is staggering

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There’s no love lost when it comes to Hearts vs Celtic, or Hearts vs Neil Lennon for that matter.

Too often it’s crossed the line to dark subjects we don’t want to be talking about during a football game. More often than not, however, these games are feisty for the right reasons.

Traditionally, this is a fixture that should be the hardest in Scottish football outside of a Glasgow derby. For long periods in history, Hearts were able to call themselves the third-best team in Scotland and would always manage to make Tynecastle a difficult place to go.

Yet someone forgot to tell Lennon. His record as Celtic manager at Tynecastle and against Hearts overall has been sensational.

In fact, if you’re from a Hearts mind, it’s quite frankly embarrassing. He’s now faced off against the Jambos on 21 occasions as Celtic manager, and has managed to win 18 of them. Granted, two of those defeats came at Tynecastle whilst one came in the Scottish Cup semi-finals, but even so, Lenny still has eight wins out of 10 in Gorgie as the Hoops boss (Fussbal Datenbank).

100% record vs Hearts since returning

Since returning to Parkhead back in February, he’s already managed four wins out of four against Hearts. Of course, this time he comes up against their ninth manager over the last 10 years in Daniel Stendel.

He effectively succeeds Craig Levein, who Lenny certainly had his battles with as Hibs boss. During his time as the Easter Road gaffer, Lennon didn’t have quite the same record against the Gorgie side.

He managed in nine Edinburgh derbies as Hibs manager, and only won three of them. Three others ended in defeat, whilst the other trio of matches ended in draws. It couldn’t have been more mixed for him.

But remember, that was at a time when he had just brought Hibs up from the Championship and was still getting them used to life back in the Premiership.

It’s his duels against Hearts with Celtic which are more pertinent here, and Lenny absolutely bosses it. The fact he’s not dropped anything to them since returning is also a boost, even if three of those games were decided by one goal.

But ahead of tonight’s meeting, he’ll be itching to make it 19 wins out of 22, as Hearts’ embarrassingly bad record against Lennon’s Celtic teams threatens to stretch.