Neil Lennon has claimed that making it 10-in-a-row was an unhealthy obsession for Celtic fans.
A year ago the Irishman lapped it all up as he stood on 38 matches away from the achievement that had escaped every manager in the history of Scottish football.
Celtic had blitzed their way to a ninth title before the 2019/20 season had been curtailed by Lockdown.
After losing a December Glasgow Derby the training camp in Dubai galvanised the squad as they took 28 points from their next 10 matches, across the city Steven Gerrard was facing a howling mob as Hamilton won at Ibrox on the back of a Scottish Cup defeat to Hearts.
Lennon held all the cards going into the 20/21 season with £10m invested in Albian Ajeti and Vasilis Barkas, when Ferencvaros won in the Second Round Champions League qualifier the club responded by signing David Turnbull and bringing in Shane Duffy on loan.
September and into October brought eight consecutive wins but autumn was brutal with Lennon looking everywhere but at himself for excuses as the season imploded.
After back to back humiliations from Sparta Prague in the Europa League around 200 fans protested outside Celtic Park as Ross County won in the Betfred Cup.
Revelling in self pity Lennon explained the aftermath of the Ross County defeat in an interview with The Times:
Speaking to the players the next day they were really disturbed and upset by that. Literally upset by it. That was the first cup defeat in 35/36 games. It was the end of an unbelievable cycle of success and for them to be treated that way was bewildering. They should have been lauded for it rather than abused. They were getting pelted with missiles. It was very sad. There was a new breed of supporters that I had nothing in common with and who belie the values of the club. They are the ones that are giving the club a bad name.
It was definitely a situation like no other. You’re going for the tenth title in a row and that was an obsession for the fans, an unhealthy obsession I felt. And we were in the midst of a pandemic where nothing was normal. So you put that together and there were a lot of things that were out of your control as a manager.
The fans protests weren’t against the players, it was against the manager, the Board of Directors and Dermot Desmond. The Ross County defeat was the fourth successive home loss, the first time that had happened since the fifties.
When the 69 match unbeaten league run ended at Tynecastle in November 2017 with a 4-0 defeat the fans in the away stand stayed behind till after the final whistle to salute the efforts of the players.
Once Lennon comes to terms with his own shortcomings as a manager he might be able to get another job inside the game rather than sharing his anger and self pity with the media that he was often at odds with over his treatment as Celtic manager.
