Neil Lennon’s lack of self-control does Celtic no favours

ONE day, Celtic will lose a big match and their manager will accept that the better team won fair and square. That the result was produced by the other side playing better football, not by criminality, incompetence or any kind of malice aforethought on the part of any match official.

One day. But will that day come while Neil Lennon is still the man in charge, or will we have to wait for a new appointee before we see that kind of equanimity?

Right now, it is hard to see Lennon developing that ability. And unless he does, it is hard to see him making a long-term success of football management.

That is, or should be, the bottom line for the Celtic manager as he contemplates another disciplinary charge after another confrontation with a referee during a match which his team went on to lose. It’s not primarily for the sake of greater sportsmanship that he should learn to curb his wrath, even if that is what many of his critics rightly want him to display. It is for the sake of his club, for his performance in the job and for his longevity as a manager. Professional players quickly learn that they need to channel some emotions and suppress others if they are to make the most of their ability. It is even more incumbent on managers to do so, for without self-control they cannot hope to extract an optimal performance from their team. But, at present, self-indulgence, not self-control, appears uppermost in Lennon’s make-up.

His alleged misconduct in Sunday’s Old Firm game came just a week after he declared a decision of referee Willie Collum’s in the League Cup final was “criminal”. He faces an SFA hearing into both matters, and if either charge is upheld part of the penalty could be the activation of a £5,000 fine.

That fine was imposed just over a year ago, but suspended until the end of this season, for remarks made at the end of his team’s match at Tynecastle the previous November. At the time he was serving a four-match ban for his “excessive misconduct” during that match, which saw him sent to the stands. That same month, March 2011, he was given another four-match ban for his behaviour during that month’s Scottish Cup tie against Rangers.

A fine of such a size will be of little consequence to Lennon, and a touchline ban need not be a major inconvenience, especially if served during what remains of the league programme. But he should take note of the lengthening charge sheet and ask himself how he might reduce the likelihood of further rows with the authorities.

After last year’s Scottish Cup final, at the end of a far more toxic season than this one has been, Lennon was able to reflect calmly on his own performance as Celtic manager. Despite the unacceptable pressure on him – he had been attacked during one game, and been subjected to various other threats to his safety – he subjected his own actions to scrutiny, and said he would have to look at changing aspects of his own persona.

It was an insightful remark. Because, while some of the bile directed towards Lennon was clearly sectarian, many people with no such axe to grind had formed a deeply negative impression of him.

He is an intelligent man, and a decent man, yet a wide cross-section of the public saw him as ignorant and thuggish. He knew he should do something to try and change that misconception, not so much for his own sake, as for that of the club. For a time it worked. The most visible outward sign of the new Lennon was a slightly longer hairstyle, but for months he seemed calmer too. There was pressure of a different sort back then, as Celtic went through a shaky spell which saw speculation grow about his job. But he had the resilience and determination to withstand it then, and it is only more recently, at the business end of the season, that the strain has begun to show.

His criticism of Collum came as Celtic lost their first domestic match since the start of October. Kilmarnock won 1-0, their goalkeeper Cameron Bell was man of the match, but Lennon could only dwell on a late penalty claim by Anthony Stokes.

“For me it is a criminal decision and it has cost us the treble,” Lennon said of Collum’s refusal of that claim. The word “criminal” was particularly ill advised, but the whole statement was out of order.

Would Celtic really have won the treble had Collum pointed to the spot? Would the equaliser have been scored? Would Celtic have gone on to win the game? Lennon was right to regard the league as in the bag, but why was he presuming his team would win the Scottish Cup too?

His complaints about Sunday’s referee Calum Murray were similarly over the top. Leaving aside the debate about what he said at half-time and how politely or otherwise he said it, his depiction of a manager’s right to question a match official was a curious one.

“I am entitled, as a manager, to speak to a referee,” he said. “Who are they accountable to? Are they just allowed to waltz through games criticism-free?”

He knows full well that they are accountable to the SFA, and that they do not waltz through games criticism-free. There is a debate to be had about how much criticism of match officials should be allowed, but Lennon’s hyperbolic assessment is not a helpful contribution to it.

Cha Du-Ri’s sending-off “changed the game”, he claimed. The contact between Cha and Lee Wallace “absolutely minimal, and he [Murray] couldn’t wait to get the red card out.”

Rangers’ “second goal was offside,” he added. “Again the linesman was not doing his job. At their third goal, we’ve got caught chasing the game, then we’ve rallied brilliantly with nine men.” Others might think that Rangers were far the better side and were strolling to victory before two last-gasp goals from Celtic produced a 3-2 result. And maybe if Lennon watches the game again in a couple of weeks he will spot the shortcomings in his own team which were not immediately obvious to him.

Or maybe he will need a while longer to acquire the detachment he needs to come up with an accurate assessment of how good this current Celtic squad are, and what he must do to make them better still.