The spin campaign to ban Neil Lennon has gone into overdrive.
What exactly was said between the Celtic boss and Calum Murray at Ibrox on Sunday is only known to a handful of people.
When the Celtic boss stated that he had witnesses to what was said it kicked off a whole new ball game that could have far reaching consequences.
The potential for a Dougie McDonald style fall-out is there but the identity of a Steven Craven figure to expose the role of the officials remains unclear.
Overnight the relationship of Lennon and fourth official Iain Brines during the first half has been highlighted.
Apparently the Celtic boss was highly critical of the fourth official, so much so that he was unable to concentrate fully on his job due to Lennon’s comments.
If that was the case then surely Brines would have brought this to the attention of Murray during the match. He didn’t.
Every manager and his assistants works on the fourth official during matches, hoping to influence them or at least make them wary of any decision that doesn’t go their way.
Despite headlines of fuming/snarling/outraged Lennon confronting Murray in the tunnel evidence of this is virtually non-existent.
Sky Sports are usually on the ball for these sort of incidents but it was ten minutes into the second half before they had noticed Lennon’s absence from the Celtic dug out.
With Lennon stating that he spoke to Murray in front of witnesses it now appears that this exchange was also in the presence of various Rangers employees- highly unlikely.
One source of agreement seems to be that Lennon wasn’t informed of his touchline ban until he left the dressing room for the start of the second half.
According to one report this was to ensure that his half-time team talk wasn’t disrupted!
It goes without saying that the team-talk would have been very different if Lennon had known that he wouldn’t be on the touchline for the second half.
What were the Celtic players thinking when they looked over to the dug out once the second half had kicked off and noticed that their manager wasn’t there?
It looks impossible to extract the truth from the whole situation without any casualties, someone’s story isn’t adding up.
The SFA have never been known for decisive action or leadership. Now would be the perfect time to start with all the cards placed on the table.
CLICK HERE for referee Conroy finally admits to Lafferty mistake
CLICK HERE for Lennon: Referee deprived me of doing my job
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If any of us allows our heart to rule our head, then you will conclude that Lenny did nothing wrong.
Alternatively, the rest of us who base our opinions on the fact that the rules are binding for all, will be of the opinion that Lenny has disadvantaged the team, and let down all Celtic fans, by his conduct.
I,like most Celtic fans, believe that Cha’s red card was harsh. But my views are irrelevant. Lenny on the other hand is duty bound as manager of our great club to abide by certain rules and regulations, including not confronting the referee. The SFA rules are unambiguous in that respect. They are inflexible, unfortunately, and breaching them can only lead to one thing – being disciplined.
I do not want Lenny to have to serve yet another suspension, but can’t see any way that he can escape censure.
Are you still at it, give it a rest and go back to your finger painting.
Who said he “confronted” the referee?
Once the League title is finally won is there any chance of the printers of the T-shirts making the following T-shirt:-
Celtic 2011/12 SPL Champions
DESPITE THE SFA
DESPITE RANGERS IN ADMINISTRATION
DESPITE CALUM MURRAY
DESPITE IAIN BRINES
DESPITE WILLIE COLLUM
DESPITE NEGATIVE FANS*
IT’S CONGA TIME!!!
* dansleftpeg and green forever – that means you.
Opposite of negative actually. Negative would be maintaining the status quo which will only drag us in one direction. Positivity wants us to move onwards and upwards. Nobody – NOBODY, is bigger or more important than the club. Remember that.
Apart from that, the T-shirt idea is no too bad. 🙂
What do you suggest? Should Lennon be sacked? Who would you bring in to replace him? What manager would put up with Scottish refs and keep his mouth shut?
I would genuinely like to hear your opinions. How should the Club move forward?
The back of the shirt’s no bad either….. read on!
I couldn’t agree more that our players ought to be doing any talking on the pitch. When will they learn? Don’t they know that the great Scottish sporting press – as they like to be known – are simply rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of using the unguarded comments to undermine our team at a later date?
Duh….anyone, for example, remember the “younger, fitter, faster” brag from last season which came back, bit us on the butt, and was used to take the p*ss out of us after we blew the league???
Do you ever have anything good to say about Celtic or do you alway’s bad mouth us ? if you don’t have anything good to say about Celtic don’t say anything, think you might be better suited to a scum of Scotland forum.
Forgot to say what’s on the back:-
Looking forward to winning the first NEL* title in 2012/13
ALWAYS LAUGHING**
* Northern European League
** For Kojo
Jimmybhoy your wrong mate leftpeg and gf are not negative fans there the ones with the brains. The ref is the main man and what he does is law and can never be wrong so can’t be questioned time for lenny to grow up because he’s letting EVERYBODY down so time to get in line and leave the poor refs alone they are always correct. that’s about right leftpeg and fg
Re jimmybhoy, there are laws that are bad laws and very wrong,history is riddled with examples of this .
Your two buddies who I have strong suspicions about, are the ones who have aided and abbeted the people who cannot and will not allow the agents of an organisation such as cfc to prosper.
Gf says he comes from the Jimmy McGrory era, well so do I and he knows society was not a pleasant place for a Celtic supporter, so shame on him.
Was working when the game was being broadcast .I only saw the highlights .
What amazes me is the total lack of respect the press and authorities have for neil lennon and celtic. The press continually goad him for a response and push till they get what they want. Celtic are under more scrutiny than any team in living memory. Why ?
All our books are in order we dont owe a penny to anyone..
The tradition of charity is still as strong as it always was .
The community aspesct is alive and kicking as we can see in the forums .
So why is being a Celtic supporter still looked
down upon by many.
As samller teams chant the same bile you get at ibrox and nothing is done . We all must stand up for what is right and being right is not easy as it it easier to fly with the wind than push against it.
They are not a force of nature just the opposite .We should not fight each other but should as wee have always done stand up and be counted and bee proud of who we are .The defeat on sunday means more to rangers than to us . We were never going to get what we wanted. Rangers were preparing for this weeks ago as their previous results show. All of a sudden injured players come out of the woodwork.
Maybe our tactics were not as they should have been ,but the players did try,some a wee bit too hard. They are young and can only improve.
Neil Lennon for me is a half decent manager with all the attention he gets he could easily give up but he doesnt. So niether should we.
As a Club and a group we should stand by our team support them as only we can . We will win the title . We will move on. We will get better . We are Celtic
Lots of comments .Some good some not but everybody has an opinion .As usual “mine” is right .I was born and raised in Ayrshire and grew up in a Rangers Orange Lodge town .
You kept your mouth shut and never showed your colours .Why because if you did you were an upitity fenian and deseved a beating.Today we have a Manager who singlehandedly chalenged the Corrupt system of Refereeing in Scotland.
HE helped change and give us a more level playing field in all games but Rangers .We got rid of the bigots Dallas and Dougie,Dougie ,but we still have Murray .Any Celtic supporter knows how he handled the shame game last year .
On Sunday frankly Celtic were never going to win that game ,were they .Murray was going to make sure of that.He clearly set the tone of the game by small decisions in favour of Rangers.His big chance to change the game came with the Cha sending off.
The second Rangers goal was offside and if you look closely at the Wanyama incident Whittaker hsd a two footed tackle as well .As someone else said we had the 2 shortest mins ever ,after Celtic scored the second goal.We were never going to win that game 9 men against 12.
AGAIN INDEED… Gosh we are getting away from the foreign media description of events…By that I mean the Scottish media that is 95% foreign owned .. ” Well we could or should all read the Sunday Post. Only joking fellow Celts.”
Apparently, Calum Murray doesn’t like anyone questioning his authority, particularly if you’re the Celtic manager. Whatever Lenny said must have struck a nerve, because he was sent off. (strange how Murray can feel threatened by words, but not when someone grabs his arm and all of the rangers players last year got away scot free.
INDEED
Fellow Tims, we lost that game on Sunday simply because we didn’t turn up for the first 85 minutes. We’d been given a fantastic incentive on Saturday when Killie gubbed the ‘Well.
But did it motivate our guys? Did it give them the one off superb opportunity to win the title at the home of our bitter rivals since 1967 which I was at?
No way, Jose! We simply did not have dyed in the wool Celtic fans in our team like big Cesar, wee Jinky, wee Bobby the Buzzbomb Lennox, Bobby Murdoch, John Clark, wee Bertie Auld etc etc.
Unlike the Buns on Sunday, none of our guys was playing for the jersey, in fact half of them looked like they’d never seen one another before.
In short, we didn’t have one player in our line up who grew up supporting Celtic, so that do or die attitude was nowhere to be seen.
In fact, wee Broonie, big Sammy, and Stokesy until he was prematurely hooked were the only outfield ones who were making any effort at all.
Teams win games when they play poorly every day of the week.
Rightly ..or wrongly…Lenny does what he does…
and gets blasted.
Sleekit stands in the tunnel at the end of the game(out of sight of the hordes BTW)… and shakes everyone’s hand …..and gets praised….
And how convenient that the cameras caught it all.
When will we ever learn …??…
Take a camera with you next time Lenny…simples.
Oh… and as for having a go at people who have the cheek to criticise Lenny…AGAIN..for his actions…
they’re probably better suppporters of the Club than you are..
‘COS THE CLUB COMES FIRST……ALWAYS.
Wee sleekit coorin timrous beestie, oh what a panick’s in thy breestie.
Too right coz you’ll no have nay club soon Smirkey
Charlie mulgrew , tony stokes
And your a fat ugly hun so live with it
baxterboy, typical Bun, but I reckon you did get one thing right when you said that Lenny “is quoted in newspapers as saying…” blab, blab.
Aye, he is “quoted” right enough, so according to you, that means that he actually did say that?
Muppet!
COMMENT FROM BAXTERBOY DELETED- EDITOR
Re, GreenForever, I have read your comments on Neil and you are convinced that he has made his mouth go at referee……… why are you so convinced that he said anything out of order….or are you just assuming that he did ( yes as he has done before ).
There are about 30 / 40 comments on this page that disagree with you but you are still assuming you are right and Neil and the other 40 comments on here are wrong.
No we all know that Neil can be a bit hot headed but after watching his interview after game the man simply IS NOT LYING.
You get your act together come back with constructive comments and maybe we can listen to you
No coinsidance that fat Sally’s bodyguard Brines is fourth official. Last year at the Rearangers shame game watch brines reaction when Lenny and Sally have their coming together at the end of the game.
Not only does Brines have a push at Lenny once he goes and has a other push at Lenny whilst standing in protective mod in front of Sally.
Brines is just a Dallas clone and the sooner he’s gone the better. Why can’t we have foreign?
what do you expect from a serving police officer.A crawling arse licking coward who is given platforms such as refereeing a football game to stroke his already massive ego.that fat bastard is an agent of the crown,so there is only person he is gonny line up against.
Apologies using iPhone fingers to big. Why don’t they give us foreign officials what are they frightened of.
I know who I believe Lenny or anyone at the SFA in Lenny I trust.
Our battles are much bigger then on field,
We must cleanse the SFA of bigots.
Good to see the bhoys have Lennon’s back, we all should have his back after what he’s going through at court just now. Don’t need any kid on Celtic fans bad mouthing him, for standing up for the team. As I said before, the ref took half a team man handling him and didn’t feel threatened last year but can’t take one man asking why a decision has been given against his team ? One word miffed !!!
There’s 2 that have been bad mouthing him.
Lenny, by HIS own admission, not anything I’ve “invented”, which the blinkered brigade on here would have you believe, confronted the ref in the tunnel at halftime. HE has admitted that.
That very action is a breach of SFA rules, and like it or lump it fellow Tims, our great club IS subject to those very same rules. Again, NOT something you may think I have “invented”, but fact.
Now, I know how I was feeling at halftime – I had a sense of injustice over Cha’s sending off – plus a few more decisions which went against us in that first half. Not to mention the fact that we were playing like a pub side! And I have no doubt whatsoever that at least 99% of other Tims felt exactly the same, as obviously would Lenny and his coaching staff.
The difference, though, is that me cursing at the telly and the missus was MY business and nobody else’s. Lenny, unfortunately, did not have a similar option open to him, and the fact that the vast majority of us might try to understand his motives, it can only end in ratsh!t for him.
It is neither here nor there as to whether anyone amongst the fans believes him – we’d always give him the benefit of the doubt anyway – but we just don’t count in this instance – it’s out of our hands.
I was not there when he confronted Murray in that tunnel, and neither were any of you. So none of us knows WHAT was said, HOW it was said, or WHO said it. Only those present know.
Sadly though, the damage was done as soon as Lenny confronted Murray. He wasn’t entitled to do it and despite all the denial merchants on here, THAT, quite simply, is why they’re chucking the book at him.
I’ve known Celtic managers from as far back as Jimmy McGrory, so work it out for yourselves, those of you who think you know anything about any of them, how many of them were ever in as much trouble as Lenny – and he’s only been in the job TWO years.
And, naw, we don’t get treated any worse than we did all those years ago, either. How many of you, for example, knew that serious efforts were made many years ago to forbid us flying the Irish Tricolour in ‘Paradise’?
I don’t feel any better about those authorities now than I did all those years ago. Nor will I ever forgive our ‘friends in Govan’ for their rabid sectarianism which I noted was still alive and kicking during Sunday’s game.
But our manager should rise above any perceived ‘wrongs’ by conducting himself with extreme dignity at all times – especially when in “THEIR” sh!thole of a ground, as on Sunday.
God bless Celtic Football Club!!!
There’s that word “confronted” again.
What part of HAD A WORD WITH don’t you understand