GORDON Strachan admitted that the joy of success lasted for all of 10 minutes, before he started to think about what to do next.

Neil Lennon might allow himself a few extra moments today at Celtic Park to appreciate what he has done this season, but his mind is already one step ahead of the game.

The Celtic manager's bags are packed and his flight is booked. The club's supporters, though, can rest easy. This will not be a repeat of Wim Jansen's departure just hours after his side became champions in 1998. Lennon plans to savour being presented with the Clydesdale Bank Premier League trophy after the match with Hearts.

Bringing the title back to the east end of Glasgow for the first time in four years, since the last of Strachan's three consecutive triumphs in 2008, was the only mission that mattered this season. However, Lennon is also eager to restore Celtic's name in Europe, so where better to go next than Lille, the home of Eurostar.

It is the football team, not the train station, that Lennon will be looking at, though. Lille OSC were French champions last season and are still in a three-way title contest with Montpellier and Paris St Germain with two games left. They played in the Champions League this season but it is Lille's success in developing young talent that has raised the club's profile.

Lennon will spend this week on the Lille training ground, learning from their coach, Rudi Garcia. He will also be in a privileged position of being close to Eden Hazard, who is about to earn Lille £40million when he moves to either Manchester City or Chelsea once the 21-year-old Belgian midfielder plays his final game for Lille next Sunday at home to Nancy.

"I am going to Lille, to study them for a couple of days to keep myself fresh and try and pick up new ideas and training techniques," explained Lennon. "Hopefully, I can have a chat with Rudi Garcia for a good few hours about his ideas on the game. I think that's important. You don't want to get stale. You don't want to think 'Right, I'm in a comfort zone here and I know everything.'

"You always want to evolve as a manager. You always did as a player so I've got an opportunity to go and visit them for a couple of days. I've got a contact over there with Gregory Dupont [Celtic's former fitness coach] and I will look at the fitness side of things through him.

"Lille still have a chance of winning the French league, so it will be interesting to see how the coach prepares them for big games. It will be interesting to see their academy as well, it's just a different insight into how a big club in another country do it.

"They won the French championship last season and have some good young players, including Joe Cole (on loan from Liverpool). It will be good to sit down and have a chat with Joe because I think he quite enjoys the environment and the style of play. I do not think you ever stop learning and it's always good to pick up new ideas. When I was development coach at Celtic, I went to see Brendan Rodgers at Reading and then Martin O'Neill at Aston Villa."

Lille offer Celtic a role model off the pitch, too. The French club buy low and sell high, as in the cases of Michel Bastos and Gervinho who were sold to Lyon and Arsenal for £14m and £10.8m, respectively. Lille's youth system discovered Hazard and Yohan Cabaye, whom Newcastle United paid £4.5m for last summer.

Hazard's family thought that Lille offered the best chance of nurturing his potential and allowed him to move from Belgium at 14 and his two younger brothers are also in the Lille academy. Lille's board expanded their Belgian interest this week by taking a 51% stake in Royal Mouscron, who were kicked out of the top flight in 2010 because of debts but won promotion from the third tier last week. Garcia's young talent will now play in Mouscron's first team.

"Lille sending promising youngsters there could progress the players quicker than normal," said Lennon, who is an advocate of the loan system. "I am looking at some of our younger players and thinking it might be good for them to have six months on loan. I know Sir Alex Ferguson does that quite a lot with his younger players at Manchester United. Look at Tom Cleverley and Danny Welbeck."

Ironically, the man who is now the jewel in the crown of Lennon's team of champions, Gary Hooper, is proof of the merits of dropping several levels to fast-track talent. He left the Tottenham Hotspur youth academy at 14 and went to a non-league side before progressing to Southend then Scunthorpe United, where his goals prompted Celtic to pay £2.3m for the striker in 2010. Now, he's worth around £8m but Hooper is keen to stay and sign a contract extension. "I'd be happy to sign for longer," he said. "I'm happy here. I need one more to be top scorer and hit 25 and hopefully I'll do that [today]."