NEIL LENNON last night moved to end any talk of a rift with Ronny Deila, his successor as Celtic manager, and expressed the view that the Norwegian's job will be made all the easier once Rangers reach the SPFL Premiership.
Deila created headlines last month when he banned chips and fizzy drinks from Celtic's training ground at Lennoxtown and stated that the squad of players he inherited had to become comfortable with the idea of being a "24-hour athlete". It was viewed by some as a criticism of Lennon's regime, and the Northern Irishman said it was "disrespectful" to take over at a club and be disparaging about existing levels of fitness.
However, as he took the manager's job at Bolton Wanderers, Lennon buried the hatchet once and for all and insisted that Deila is perfectly suited to take the Glasgow club forward despite a difficult start which has brought a Champions League exit and has them sixth in the league table after eight games.
"I think Ronny just wants to implement his own ways in terms of diet," said Lennon. "I think everyone would know that the diet at Celtic was pretty good and Ronny is just trying to maybe eke out a little bit more. I don't think he was critical of my regime and certainly not critical of the players. He just wants to put his mark on the club; that is fine by me.
"Under Ronny, when he finds his feet and gets time to implement what he does, the club will be very successful. We have had great success and we are the dominant team in Scotland and I am pretty sure the club have picked the right man to take the club forward. I wish Ronny, the club and the players every success."
Lennon believes, though, that Celtic have suffered from a lack of competition following the financial collapse of Rangers in 2012. "I think it is important that Rangers come back and they have the Celtic v Rangers games again," said Lennon. "I think that edge and competitiveness has been missed for a couple of seasons. They need that stimulus week-in, week-out. All competitors need it."
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