Lennon. Imagine.

Published 15th Apr 2019

We'll get the obligatory reference to sectarian singing out of the way first of all.

Aberdeen's manager Derek McInnes was absolutely correct to feel outraged by having the hard of understanding taunt him with a disgusting song at Hampden on Sunday.

Just as the Kilmarnock boss Steve Clarke was right to experience identical feelings of revulsion when the same song was directed at him by the hard of understanding from another theological persuasion at Ibrox earlier in the season.

Both sets of religious zealots are equally wrong, equally anti-social and equally welcome to go and peddle their nonsense somewhere else in the midst of a twenty-first century that's had enough of them and their primitive ways.

I have lived in Glasgow all of my life. I have lived with this anti-social nonsense all of my life. I laugh at both sets of songsters and yet I know, deep down in my heart, that they'll never go away.

The only consolation is they are the minority and I can have the satisfaction of saying they are undoubtedly crass, bovine and beneath the contempt of anyone who has the ability to count to ten.

I laugh at both sides. I despise both sides. Are we clear?

Now for the football.

Aberdeen were rancid from start to finish at Hampden and that'll hurt their manager much more than the songs from the swamp.

Celtic, on the other hand, were outstanding and should have won by an even more convincing margin.

So where does this leave Neil Lennon and his quest to become Celtic's manager on a full-time basis?

If you asked a dyed in the wool Celtic fan to summarise the very essence of the club they supported he, or she, would say it was an institution for the people run by the people who would respect its humble origins.

But now it is clearly not enough to be a "Celtic man" like Lennon.

He played for the club with distinction. He managed the club with distinction. But that's no longer enough.

Brendan Rodgers was a Hollywood-style appointment on mega-money and the A-list celebrity delivered glittering prizes, seven of them in a row.

Nobody likes him now he's gone and destroyed the myth about having the club in his heart and in his soul.

A spell was broken when Leicester became bigger than Celtic, but the disillusioned still want another Rodgers more than they want the wee ginger headed guy who took over under emergency circumstances and steadied a ship which had hit unexpectedly stormy waters.

But none of the names mentioned in association with the Celtic job so far are viable candidates for a variety of reasons.

High among them would be the fact that they wouldn't entertain Scottish football under any circumstances, not even for Rodgers' bank-breaking wage.

Others are on the run from recent years of under-achievement that should preclude them from even entering the paddock for runners and riders where the Celtic job is concerned.

Sometimes the answer to a question stares you right in the face.

The goals from James Forrest and Tom Rogic on Sunday were reminiscent of the Rodgers era at Celtic Park.

The end to the season under Lennon is as good as the start to the campaign that was made by Rodgers.

The interim manager should be allowed to finish his audition for the job, see if he can complete the winning of the treble treble and then, if all has gone according to plan, be seen as the candidate who best knows how to handle the demands of what follows from the start of next season.

Because no-one knows better than the victim of street assaults, pitch-side assaults, viable packages and other assorted forms of cretinous behaviour what is coming along.

The bottom line is that Sunday at Hampden showed Lennon had the tactical nous and the ability to coax a performance out of his players sufficient enough to get a big job done in style.

Next weekend, the appropriate sequence of results over a twenty-four hour period in Edinburgh permitting, he could wrap up the league title.

He's in pole position to succeed Rodgers, but the wait to confirm his appointment is understandable.

A better man has yet to emerge. But what will time tell us that the present hasn't already divulged.