YOU can take the man out of Celtic, but you can't take Celtic out of the man.

Neil Lennon is perfectly open about the fact he will, as you would expect, carry a part of that Glasgow institution with him from here to the great technical area in the sky after spending a grand total of 14 years of his life at Celtic Park as a player, captain, coach, manager and figurehead for a cause.

However, followers of Bolton Wanderers maybe did not expect to see him transport so many trademarks of his time at the Scottish champions to Lancashire with such remarkable urgency.

In June 2010, on the day he became the permanent manager at Parkhead following a spell as caretaker, Lennon spoke of "bringing the thunder back" to the stands. Sure enough, on his first day in charge at the Macron Stadium yesterday, he expressed the very same desire.

Negotiations over the Northern Irishman's three-year contract helped ensure that his backroom team of Johan Mjallby and Garry Parker travelled with him to Bolton. Mjallby worked hard on the defensive side of the game during his time on the coaching team at Celtic and will be charged with fulfilling that same brief at a club currently rock bottom of the Sky Bet Championship, with five points from 11 matches.

The three coaches have, according to Lennon, already set about establishing within the Bolton squad the same kind of positive psychology which brought three league titles to Celtic, as well as two Scottish Cups and a place in the last 16 of the Champions League. This is a grand plan which will take time to implement, of course, but Lennon used his very first training session to show that this will be cultivated from the smallest acorns.

Meeting his squad for the first time at their Euxton training facility, he instructed them to remove their woolly hats after warming up. It was time for the hard work to begin. Standards are already being set and they date back to his days drilling his players in the chilly conditions of Celtic's scenic but exposed base at Lennoxtown.

"They were fine in the warm-up, but it is not as cold here as it is in Glasgow," explained Lennon. "I used to ask Georgios Samaras to take his hat off every day because he wanted to protect his hair.

"He was a great professional, though. I just want the boys to get into good habits and you don't play games in woolly hats. It was very light-hearted and they responded very well."

Lennon has, of course, arrived at a club with chronic, debt-related financial problems. He had the opportunity to go to Saudi Arabia and get rich quick at the Jeddah-based side, Al-Ittihad, but felt that such a move did not satisfy his football ambitions.

The foot of the Championship may seem rather a lowly place in which to begin again after his past successes, but the 43-year-old insists he has never once felt he made a mistake when leaving Celtic of his own free will in the summer.

"The club will always stay with you, but I had six months away from Celtic," he said. "It was a really tough decision to leave, but I have never regretted it. I had a wonderful time and it will always be a huge part of my life but my whole focus is now on Bolton Wanderers. I want to make an impact here and I want to make people happy here.

"I want to bring the atmosphere back. I played here back in the day and it is a fantastic atmosphere when the place gets going.

"The name itself has a great history and I want to make my own mark on the club now. The reason we are in football is because we think we can make things better and that is what I want to do. I always felt I wanted my future to be in England and, after 14 great years in Scotland, I have the opportunity to work here.

"Celtic did wonderful things not just for my career, but for my life as well. It is a magnificent club. I loved my time there, but I felt it was time to go. This is a totally different challenge to the one I had at Celtic, but it is one of the motivations for coming here."

Bolton have conceded 21 goals in their 11 league matches so far this season. That is where Mjallby, a defensive rock for both Celtic and Sweden during his playing career, comes into the frame. "That was a speciality at Celtic," said Lennon. "We had a decent defensive record over the piece and did well in Europe and Johan was a huge facet of that.

"We want to bring the success we had at Celtic to Bolton. We had to win at Celtic. A draw was no good. Johan and I have a winning mentality that we want to instil into the players."

Ironically, though, it is a former Rangers player that Lennon finds himself leaning on for advice as he gets to grips with life at his new club. Jimmy Phillips, who played at Ibrox between 1987 and 1988, enjoyed two spells as a player at Bolton and is currently the director of the club's academy. "I had a good chat with Jimmy and I will continue to converse with him in the future," added Lennon.

Although handling all media engagements with his usual good grace, including a phone-in show on BBC Radio Manchester which ran until 7pm, it was on the pitch with his players that Lennon felt most alive yesterday. "I enjoyed the break, but I was getting really itchy over the last month or so and getting an opportunity like this is fantastic."