Hibs’ Ryan Porteous on Neil Lennon: ‘He gets in your head, so you believe you’re the best’

Ryan Porteous prepares forSundays Premiership encounter between Hibs and Celtic.

Celtic boss Neil Lennon was the man who handed the young Scottish defender his first Premiership start, while he was in charge of the Easter Road side, and Porteous knows the part his man-management skills played as that match against Rangers rolled round in February 2018. “He was brilliant with me. He gave me an opportunity when I didn’t think I would get one,” said Porteous.

“My first [top tier] start was Rangers away. To have such faith in a young boy was something. And he convinced me that I was ready, when I probably wasn’t.

“He was great with me and I have to thank him for what he did. Looking back, I should probably have been a lot more nervous than I was. But he does get in your head, he does convince you that you’ll be fine. He did that with me.

“He pulled me into his office on the Thursday and said: ‘Ryan, I’ve got to play you…I’ve got nobody else’, but he told me: ‘You’re ready, you’re a man, you’ve been training with the first team, you’ve done well – just go and do what you’ve been doing’.”

Just 18 at the time, with a loan spell at Edinburgh City under his belt and a handful of League Cup games and substitute appearances to call on, the Ibrox head-to-head was a massive step up, but, slotted in between Efe Ambrose and Lewis Stevenson in a makeshift Hibs backline, they kept their Govan hosts at bay, helping their team to a 2-1 win courtesy of goals from John McGinn and Jamie Maclaren.

“Fortunately the players in front of me had a brilliant game and made it pretty easy,” he added. “But he’s that kind of guy who just makes you believe you’re the best player.

“It was the same with Efe and Lewis, I think he convinced them that they’d be fine, as well. It was an interesting day! So I’m not surprised by what he’s done at Celtic. He makes good players even better by improving their mentality.”

Tomorrow’s league meeting comes a week after the Parkhead club bagged their tenth successive domestic trophy, beating Rangers to win the Betfred Cup, having ousted Hibs in the semis.

Celtic are still fighting on several fronts, topping their Europa League group and edging ahead of Rangers at the top of the Premiership in their last round of fixtures. But Porteous is buoyed by recent Hibs results and performances, with only one defeat in the past 11 league matches.

While many of them were draws, since the departure of Paul Heckingbottom as manager they have turned several of them into wins and, with last weekend’s 3-0 win over Aberdeen, added a clean sheet into the mix – their first since the opening day of the campaign.

“We know they are a great team but we have just got to focus on ourselves and do what we can do,” said Porteous, but, under Jack Ross, they will travel to Celtic Park tomorrow in positive mood.

“There is a bit more of a positive feel around the club, because we’re winning games. Sometimes a manager comes in and starts changing things and it can go really wrong. But he’s not changed or unsettled anything and, fortunately, we got wins straight away. That could be coincidence but we need to keep knuckling down.

“I don’t think we could have had a better result going into a game against Celtic. We’ve beaten an Aberdeen team who have been consistently one of the best in Scotland, regularly finishing in second and third place. And to beat them 3-0 at home, quite convincingly, you are obviously doing something right.

“We’re optimistic that we can go there and put on a good show.”