Rangers administration: make mind up on Old Firm, says Neil Lennon

This time last year the club were portrayed as being an embarrassment to the country. MSPs were frothing at the mouth in condemnation of an Old Firm fixture that had become an excuse for domestic abuse and excessive drinking, not to mention the poor behaviour of the players and coaching staff, Lennon included.

Now the Celtic manager hears First Minister Alex Salmond claim that the most important thing, in the wake of Rangers calling in administrators, is that they are able to continue as a football club, since Celtic would not be able to prosper without their greatest rivals. Rangers, the First Minister added, are an “institution”, and he went on to stress how their survival, and that of the Old Firm brand, is crucial for Scottish football’s long-term prospects.

Lennon would certainly lament the end of an Old Firm rivalry which helped sustain him as a player. The fixture is one which Lennon wants to continue relishing as a manager, even if it did cause him a few problems last season as things came close to reaching overkill over the course of seven clashes, with one game in particular leading to much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Holyrood and further afield.

“The game itself is one of the fixtures in world football,” Lennon said yesterday, when asked about the possibility of the Old Firm derby ceasing to exist. “If that eventually happens it would be a loss to Scotland and what’s good about the game up here.

“The ironic thing is that last year, when we had the ‘shame game’, everyone was coming out and saying we don’t need the Old Firm. Now everyone’s saying we do need it. They can’t make up their minds.”

Lennon also registered his surprise at hints from the government, both in terms of Scotland and the UK, suggesting that HMRC should perhaps cut a deal with Rangers. Prime Minister David Cameron, on a visit to Scotland on Thursday, appeared to propose the view that this might be possible, although it was one more explicitly expressed by Scotland’s First Minister.

“I think their [the Celtic fans’] view on it is that there wasn’t much help coming our way in 1994, so why should other clubs be treated differently?” said Lennon, with reference to Celtic’s brush with liquidation in the mid-90s, prior to Fergus McCann’s intervention.

Lennon could certainly not seek to claim he had no interest in events across the city, having made it quite clear that he had sat and watched the eagerly anticipated first press conference held by the administrators on Thursday.

The Celtic manager later tweeted about it, complaining that the answers which had been given were as “clear as mud”. He admitted that it had been a “wow” moment when, a day earlier, he had heard that his side would be getting a “gift” of ten points.

“There was a lot of talk about it for a long, long time but you never think that a club as big as that would go into administration,” he said. “There was shock and surprise and we know the consequence of it – we get a ten point bonus.” Celtic begin the task of protecting this lead against Hibernian at Easter Road tomorrow.

Lennon knows that Rangers’ business is Celtic’s business, particularly since the Ibrox club’s fall into administration means there is a different dynamic at the top of the Scottish Premier League.

While last weekend it was a two-horse race, now it has become a test of Celtic’s professionalism as they seek to do what has to be done to seal a title that most observers believe was handed to them on Tuesday, when that automatic ten point penalty was imposed on Rangers after the club confirmed that administrators had taken over the running of the club from Craig Whyte.

But what exercised Lennon yesterday was this commonly-held perception that both sides of the Old Firm’s fortunes are irrevocably linked to each other. Peter Lawwell, the club’s chief executive, had his say earlier this week, when responding to Salmond’s remarks. “Celtic have a well-defined strategy and a business plan independent of the fortunes of any other club,” he said, re-emphasising comments he had made on Monday following the publication of Celtic’s interim financial results, just hours before news that Rangers were preparing to appoint administrators first broke.

“We don’t want to be tagged with the financial problems that have beset Rangers,” Lennon said. “We don’t have these problems but I think people in England and elsewhere think it is a Scottish problem. But, for us, it is not a problem we have had to endure. We have cut our cloth accordingly, and so we shouldn’t get tarred with the same brush.”

Lennon is continuing to build for the future. In stark contrast to Rangers, he was able to reveal another signing yesterday, with goalkeeper Lukasz Zaluska having agreed a new three-year contract. Talks are continuing with first choice goalkeeper Fraser Forster, whose loan arrangement from Newcastle United expires at the end of this season. Lennon wants to tie him down on a permanent deal.

“There has been a conversation between Peter [Lawwell] and my agent,” said Forster yesterday. “They have had a chat. That is all there has been, but there is plenty of time until the end of the season.”

While Lennon has the luxury of discussing new deals with players, Ally McCoist, his opposite number at Rangers, faces the cruelest of all managerial tasks. McCoist, in all likelihood, will have to begin trimming down his squad, or else find the administrators doing that job for him as cuts begin to be made to staff.

Lennon feels for McCoist, with whom he has made up following their touchline skirmish almost a year ago. “I have great sympathy for my counterpart, having to go through what he is going through at the minute when it is nothing to do with him,” said Lennon. “It’s his first season and I am sure he could never envisage the trouble he was going to get.”

“And for the players, obviously,” he added, with reference to others at Rangers he felt deserved to be in people’s thoughts. But he drew the line at feeling for other, pointedly un-named individuals. “It’s a really tough time for a lot of people at the club and while I have sympathy for them, I have no sympathy for a lot of other people involved,” Lennon stated, firmly.