Neil Lennon has accused Celtic fans of chasing Peter Lawwell out the door- despite admitting that the long serving CEO had always planned to step down at the end of this season.
Lawwell twice appointed Lennon as caretaker manager before making the deal permanent. In 2010 it lasted for four years but the 2019 appointment lasted half that time as Celtic’s season crashed with barely a token defence put up of the SPFL title.
After picking up £9m compensation from Leicester for Brendan Rodgers in February 2019 Celtic turned to the recently departed Hibs boss to take over as they chased their eighth successive title.
Lennon delivered that, in the euphoria of a laboured Scottish Cup Final win over Hearts he was given the job on a permanent basis but not allowed to bring in any of his own assistants to the coaching staff.
Celtic suffered a horrendous run of results during October and November culminating in a 2-0 Betfred Cup defeat at home to Ross County.
It was the fourth successive home defeat, it came on the back of two 4-1 defeats to Sparta Prague in the Europa League and prompted around 200 fans to protest outside the main entrance after the final whistle.
The club seemed unaffected by the disastrous results, barricades were installed around the Jock Stein and Jimmy Johnstone statues as the relationship between fans and hierarchy reached rock bottom.
Discussing the issues of last season Lennon told BBC Scotland:
They’ve chased Peter out the door, they’ve gone after Dermot [Desmond, Celtic’s majority shareholder], and these guys have done nothing but try to bring success to the club.
They [fans] were putting out banners against the board two or three seasons earlier when we were winning trebles. I didn’t understand it.
I think Peter was always intending to leave anyway at the end of the season, but it was sad after 17 years’ fantastic service we all sort of went out the back door quietly.
In August 2019 a banner appeared inside Celtic Park warning Lennon, Lawwell and Desmond not to fall asleep at the wheel.
Lawwell will officially retire at the end of this month but hasn’t given any indication of whether he will continue to be involved at any level.
