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‘You have to take it’ Lennon on the unique city pressure he thrives on

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The 2020 version of Neil Lennon is an old hand at dealing with the pressures of managing Celtic.

A decade ago he was about to become caretaker boss after Peter Lawwell was forced to ditch his Tony Mowbray experiment.

Last year Brendan Rodgers decided to dedicate his life to Leicester City with the Celtic chief executive again turning to Lennon when the pressure was at its highest.

Both caretaker posts were converted into permanent deals with Lennon better placed than anyone else to deal with the pressures of managing in Glasgow.

Steven Gerrard is beginning to flap as questions begin to get asked about him but the first three weeks of January saw Lennon in the spotlight.

Some fans that had wanted another hipster to replace Rodgers had never warmed to Lenny II, using the derby day defeat to justify their views after being fairly quiet since the Cluj backlash in August.

Lennon is too street-wise to become complacent but at the age of 48 there’s not much in the job that will take him by surprise.

He told The Sun:

You feel pressure every week. You feel it going into every game. That’s just the nature of the job really.

You have to take it. You have to take the criticism when it comes and you have to take on board what some people say if it is factual or realistic and ignore the rest. The expectations are so high, and when you get beat you have to mull it over for a few days.

You know those eternal factors are there, but you just have to blank it out and concentrate on doing your job as conscientiously as you can.

There have been quite a few occasions where I might have reacted differently first time around, so I’m not that person I was maybe ten years ago. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes that’s a bad thing.

After returning to Celtic in February it took Lennon 10 months to complete a clean sweep of domestic trophies.

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