Henrik Larsson made a show stopping return to Celtic last night with a hat-trick against Manchester United as 55,000 fans paid tribute to the King of Kings and helped Oxfam’s East Africa Famine Appeal.
The Swedish superstar took a break from the the demands of managing Landskrona BoIS in the Swedish Second Division to catch up with all things Celtic and saw first hand the status that Neil Lennon has aquired after a year in charge of the hoops.
Lennon’s Celtic playing days will forever be linked with Paul Lambert with Larsson admitting that if he was to pick a future Celtic manager from the two of them he’d have opted for the man who has just steered Norwich City to back-to-back promotions.
“Neil was a very clever player and I have only heard good things about him as a gaffer,” the Swede admitted. “But if you had told me back in 2003 that one member of our team would one day be the manager of Celtic then I wouldn’t have chosen Lenny. I never seen him becoming a manager.
“Paul Lambert would have been the one – I would have put my money on him – he always wanted to be a coach.
“Paul did become a manager but not of Celtic. He would have been a great Celtic manger if you look at what he done with Norwich. He is a top manager but Neil is also a good manager who should win the league this season.”
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Since the moment he left Celtic as a player in 2004 supporters have wondered when not if the 242 goal striker will return to Celtic.
Larsson memoribilia still sells constantly in the Celtic shops with songs in his honour heard regularly at matches.
The former Barcelona and Manchester United is well aware of the speculation surrounding him but is hoping that three former team-mates remain in the management positions for some time to come.
Larsson added: “Unfortunately, I will never be able to stop people talking about me coming back to manage Celtic, but I have my friends Neil, Alan Thompson and Johann Mjallby doing a great job for Celtic.”
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Would walk into our team as the best player even now at 39yrs old.
Last night was a message for the board if i ever seen one. Sign the star names, and the punters will turn up!