NEIL Lennon has admitted the chance of winning 10 consecutive league titles could keep him at Celtic for several more years.
The manager was linked with Norwich City again this week and is the subject of frequent speculation about when he might choose to leave Scottish football for England. He spoke of the ambitions he still has for Celtic yesterday, but also of the objectives he could realise only by leaving to manage elsewhere.
A UK-wide audience will have the chance to watch Lennon discussing his future in an interview on Sky Sports' Soccer AM programme this morning, in which he told them his ideal scenario is him being manager of Celtic with the club resident in the English Premier League. His interest in managing a top-flight club south of the border is an open secret, but Lennon said yesterday: "Sometimes it can be a distraction but it will take a lot for me to leave the job here.
"It's a huge club. But we all have ambitions to go on. How many titles can you win? Is it six, seven, eight, nine, ten? The big carrot is the Champions League. But there are other challenges and ambitions out there that eventually you want to fulfil if you can.
"But there's no guarantee of that. People are talking as if I can just walk out of Celtic and get a job in England. I think it has become increasingly difficult with new owners who have their own ideas. I'm really proud of what we've done here. I try not to think of my stock going up and down, but it's inevitable that you can't stop the way people perceive you.
"The dream scenario would be to go to the English Premier League with Celtic. Do I think it will happen? I hope so. That's not being disrespectful to the Scottish game, I'd just like to see it happen." He was asked if it would matter to him if Rangers also enjoyed the financial advantages of playing south of the border? "Not at all. I'm not that selfish!"
Lennon and Celtic are close to completing the formality of winning their third consecutive title together. They face Hearts at Tynecastle in today's lunchtime kick-off, the team isolated at the top playing the one adrift at the bottom. Two-and-a-half months ago Celtic won 7-0 at the same ground in the Scottish Cup. That performance was their most compelling domestic display of the season.
"If we can play anywhere near the standard we set last time I'll be delighted," said Lennon. "The first 45 minutes was the best football I've seen from a team I've managed in my time here."
The result was a humiliation for his opposite number, Gary Locke, and Lennon admitted he had felt sympathy for him. "You always do. Any time you give a team a hammering you have certain sympathies for the guy in the other dugout, but you're there to do a job. Coming away after that game I was waxing lyrical about the way we played. I was so pleased.
"If Hearts go down it will be a loss to the top flight. They are one of the bigger clubs in the country and Gary has had it really tough this season. We all think we are under pressure and in tough jobs but Gary has had the hardest job of any of us this season, to deal with the stuff he's had to put up with. I admire the way he's dealt with it. He loves the club and his enthusiasm for the job is unrelenting. He's done very well to keep his dignity in trying."
Charlie Mulgrew is available again but Emilio Izaguirre is out injured. The match will assume additional significance if Celtic navigate the first 30 minutes without conceding a goal, because that will ease goalkeeper Fraser Forster past the 43-year-old record for consecutive minutes of Scottish league football without conceding a goal. Aberdeen's Bobby Clark set the record at 1155 unbeaten minutes and Forster, after 12 consecutive clean sheets, can beat that today. "I think goalkeepers and back fours pride themselves on clean sheets but to be as consistent as that for a concerted period of time takes some doing," said Lennon. "It'd be a great landmark. Clean sheets are very difficult things to achieve."
Forster will become synonymous with the record if it is broken today but Efe Ambrose, Virgil van Dijk, Adam Matthews, Mikael Lustig and Darnell Fisher have all played their parts in defending the Celtic goal over the past dozen league games. According to one English broadsheet newspaper yesterday the excellent van Dijk has interested both Manchester United and Manchester City.
"I don't know how much truth there is in that but it wouldn't surprise me," said Lennon. "I think he's one of the best centre-halves we've seen up here in quite a while."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article