NEIL LENNON revealed he is more motivated by success than money after signing a new contract on the same terms as before.
Despite reaching the last 16 of the Champions League last season, the Celtic manager yesterday agreed a new one-year rolling contract on the same pay and conditions, the only significant change a "tweak" to certain legal aspects of the deal.
The Celtic manager, however, was happy to conclude the paperwork, revealing he was already "well paid" and that bringing more success to the club was more important to him than extra money. "It's the same contract," he said. "There were just some legal stipulations that I wanted tweaked a little bit. I signed it on Friday morning so I'm happy to proceed.
"I'm well paid. The club have looked after me very well from the day I walked in as a player. I've got a good contract and good backing.
"The priority for me is the football side of things [not money]. I have a huge challenge now - can I take this team into the Champions League without three of the more important players from years gone by? That is a huge challenge in itself.
"You are always one game away from a crisis and that is very, very true as I have witnessed these last few days," added Lennon.
"It keeps you thinking. It gives you some sleepless nights sometimes. The one thing I fear in this job is the sack and that is what drives me and motivates me more than anything.
"Obviously producing a good team and good players and winning silverware is added to that, but the fear of the sack is the thing that motivates me more than anything else.
"I'll always feel while I'm in the job that I owe people something, whether it's the people who employ me, the supporters, or the players I bring in. It's just the way I am. I'll always feel I've got a responsibility to someone."
The "tweaks" are thought to include changes to the terms should Lennon wish to break his contract but the Northern Irishman was reluctant to divulge more. "That's a private matter. But there were things I wanted to change from a couple of years ago and they've agreed to do that."
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