O’Neill hits out at Lenny’s former team-mates but stops short

Martin O’Neill has hit out at the former team-mates who apparently stabbed Neil Lennon in the front last season. 

Last week the Omonia Nicosia boss called into PLZ to moan about former team-mates without naming names. Effectively Lennon put all of his team-mates under suspicion. 

From the pre-season condition of Leigh Griffiths through a Champions League exit to Ferencvaros last season was one of constant disaster with Lennon only saved by the blind loyalty of Peter Lawwell and Dermot Desmond. 

Finally, in late February, two weeks after being backed by a Managerial Review, Lennon resigned after losing to Ross County for the second time this season. 

Picking up on O’Neill’s appearance on PLZ Soccer, the Daily Record reports the former Celtic boss saying: 

I mentioned to a couple of the players about that. I know everybody has to make a living in this life after football or if you happen to still be involved in the punditry aspect or whatever the case may be but that can be very hurtful indeed, particularly people you know you’ve sat in the dressing room, cajoled and encouraged. 

You’ve been encouraged by these people as well and don’t get me wrong, Neil Lennon was a big leader, he might not have been captain too often in my time at Leicester or Celtic, but he was essentially captain in everything but the word. He was a big leader in the team so that’s really disappointing. 

While O’Neill and Lennon refuse to name names, suspicions will fall on all of their former team-mates. 

Chris Sutton and John Hartson, and to a lesser extent Stan Petrov, were rightly critical of Lennon and Celtic last season, anything less would made them figures of fun like the on-message cheerleaders other clubs have.