Lennon walking on in search of some golden sky

SOCCER:After a season that saw threats to his life and an assault at a ground CARL O'MALLEYhears that the Celtic boss is only looking forward and focused on success for the club

NEIL LENNON could have walked away last season. Not many would have blamed him, but some would argue he brought it on himself. Such is the nature of his existence at the moment – a father, a footballer, a manager who divides opinion round these parts of the world like few others.

He hasn’t gone anywhere, though, and will lead Celtic out at Easter Road tomorrow, for his second season at the helm. “They” haven’t succeeded and winning silverware is, he hopes, the only thing back on the agenda.

It has to be. He has the fans on side, unlike the last two managers, but even for someone so revered, Lennon, like any Celtic boss, has got to produce soon.

In the white heat of the Old Firm, victory is all that matters, and league honours have not been celebrated at Celtic Park since 2008. He won a Scottish Cup last season with a 3-0 win over Motherwell, but if another campaign ends with Celtic looking up at Rangers it will be tough for even the most ardent Lennon supporter to stomach.

“I think so,” he admits with a knowing nod. “You never say never, but it would put me in a difficult situation if we fell short again or we didn’t perform. Every year you are looking for progression, so we made big strides last year. People might say we threw it away, we had it in our hands and we let it go, so that was hugely disappointing.”

It’s hard to pinpoint where it fell down, but Inverness’s 3-2 win at the Caledonian Stadium is a good place to start, leaving them as it did a point adrift of their rivals with three games to go. “The one thing I wouldn’t have changed, particularly against Inverness, was my back four. They had been playing so well, a really cohesive unit. And they all chose that night to play pretty poorly and we lost that game and we gave Rangers the initiative.”

That said, there was also Giorgio Samaras’ saved penalty in the last Old Firm meeting at Ibrox in April and three consecutive home draws against Dundee United, Caley and Kilmarnock late last year. Had one been converted into three points, the manger would have ended a three-year wait.

“I wouldn’t say there’s a naivety there among the team because our consistency was very good over the season, but what we lacked a wee bit was a bit of experience and they’re a year older now so, hopefully, that will stand them in good stead going into this campaign. We’ve brought (central defender) Kelvin Wilson on a free contract from Nottingham Forest, so he’s had 200-odd games under his belt. We’re very pleased to get him.”

Kenyan midfielder Victor Wanyama made his Celtic debut against Cardiff last Wednesday. Lennon is hoping to add one or two more to the ranks and hasn’t ruled out the possibility of luring Republic of Ireland captain Robbie Keane to Glasgow.

“If there is a scenario where’s there’s an availability there, we’ll definitely look at it,” he says, suggesting another loan move for the man who scored 12 in 16 games for his predecessor Tony Mowbray in 2010 would be preferable if Spurs don’t find a buyer for the Dubliner.

Fellow Irish veteran and new Aston Villa goalkeeper Shay Given would have been a nice addition as well. “I’d love to have Shay, obviously. Who wouldn’t? But with his weekly wage and transfer fee on top, it was probably well out of our reach.”

After pre-season in Australia, where his side lost one and won two, Wednesday saw a 1-0 win over Cardiff City, courtesy of a goal from another Irish striker Anthony Stokes – a young man with a “bit of the rascal” in him.

Lennon appears to have a soft spot for a fellow polariser of opinions, but was left a bit miffed by his decision to decline a call-up to international duty at the end of last season.

“I wasn’t really aware of it until two or three days after the cup final and the squad had broken up by then. If the opportunity (to talk with Stokes) came again, I’d sit down with him and say, ‘what are you doing – just go and play’.”

Having been forced to walk away from his own international career, after being bestowed with the Northern Ireland captain’s armband resulted in the first threats on his life, Lennon would “drive to their house” if players failed to show for their country while he was in charge.

“It puts the manager in a difficult situation and puts the player in a difficult situation for the future. He’s (Stokes) got to win back the respect of the manager.

“We were talking about Ireland earlier on and the good summer they had with the win against Macedonia and obviously Italy, so they are going into the new season with a lot of confidence.

“Any player, when their international team is going well, should want to be a part of that and for someone like Stokesy, who decided not to go, he’s got a long way back now. He’s got to play well for us at club level and try to catch the eye of Trapattoni again.”

For Lennon, if not for Giovanni Trapattoni, Stokes is an asset, after 14 goals in 29 games last season.

“He’s a good player. He did exactly what we bought him to do. He scored a lot of goals. He’s young and he’s a bit impetuous at times and there’s still a bit of the rascal in him. But I don’t mind that in a player’s personality. As he gets older, that will waver.”

That immaturity was one of the reasons he only started the first game against Rangers last season.

“It was more tactical, really. And it hurt him a little bit but I tried to sit him down and explain it. He played in the first game and sometimes you can get caught up in the emotion of the game and the game passed him by a little bit.

“We just felt with the team we went with (Samaras as a lone striker) in the remainder of the games it worked better for us.

“And that’s not a slight on Anthony because I’ve no doubt he’ll have a part to play in Rangers games this season, but he’s had a look at it now, he’s had a year at it. He knows what’s expected of him this season and I think he’ll accept that.”

They’re feisty affairs when the two tribes meet and no matter how hard Lennon tries to put football first, as the season draws closer, the spectre of more unpleasantness looms.

After bullets and viable bomb parcels were intercepted en route to the home he shares with his partner and son last season, he’s now flanked by three bodyguards, but just the one in Dublin, where he will return next week to test his team against Inter Milan (the clubs met in the 1967 European Cup Final) and a League of Ireland XI in the Dublin Super Cup at the Aviva Stadium that also includes Manchester City.

“I’m hoping that was the tipping point last season. I mean, there is new legislation being brought in by the Scottish government, which is remarkable really that we’re talking about football as a sport needing legislation to stamp out sectarianism and things that go on around the grounds, and certainly the individual circumstances that happened to me.”

“I’m hoping I’ve seen the last of that sort of thing, but you never know.”

A Catholic man from Lurgan, he refers to those watching his back as the “security forces”. They kept him well briefed during those “disconcerting” times. “In terms of my job, I could get on with my job and I had great support obviously from a lot of people. If it continues again you’ve got to reassess the situation and obviously take your family’s feelings into consideration.

“I just felt at the time, that I’d brought a lot of players in and I owed it to them to stay around.”

No amount of ear-cupping to crowds or angry exchanges with opposition managers warrants what he endured last season, he argues. The mere suggestion brings out the fighter.

“It makes me angry. It’s complete nonsense, really. How do I bring on people sending viable bomb parcels in the post? How do I bring on a guy jumping out of stadium full of people and attacking a manager?

“There’re a lot of things I’ve done that have been no different to other managers . . . I think it’s just a really lame excuse to hide behind and they have been doing it for 10 years now when it comes to me. I know that the real reason is my background, my religion and because I was successful as a player. They don’t like that.”

And they’ll not like the fact it drives him too. “Of course, yeah. These people see me as some sort of threat to their happiness. Why would they do it otherwise? If Celtic were 20 points behind Rangers and out of all the cups I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you, or I would have been the subject of ridicule and not bomb threats.”

He’ll have only adulation from the Dublin crowd next week, that much is guaranteed. Afterwards, in the season ahead, who knows what he’ll have to put up with? Either way, he won’t change.

“I don’t think so. My team play good football, we’ve made massive strides on and off the field. We’ve got the crowd on our side for the first time in a while. I just want to get on with trying to build a football team that suits the Celtic style of play.”