If you’re gonna manage of football team, it’s worth knowing its ambitions
One thing that has struck me about Neil Lennon is that he appreciates this club’s ambitions- no get back into the Premier League.
Lennon has gone on about how big this club actually is and has praised the facilities and the depth in many areas of the squad.
He is really making the most of the likes of Chung Yong Lee, Mark Davies and Jay Spearing- who I think should all be Premier League players. The reason the first two aren’t is because of injuries. The reason Spearing isn’t is because, had he waited he probably could have got himself to a Premier League club on loan from Liverpool.
When we were relegated to the Championship, Owen Coyle brought Spearing in, as well as players like Matt Mills. Mills didn’t have a great start to his Wanderers career but he’s definitely the sort of player a manager in Coyle’s position should be signing. Someone with experience playing at the TOP end of this league.
I appreciate the fact and empathise with Dougie Freedman that he was unable to attract this sort of player to the club as he lacked the financial means. However, the players he did sign are the sort of players smaller teams in this division should be signing. I consider us to be a bigger team than Milwall, but we signed Liam Trotter and Liam Feeney who couldn’t really make their first team squad.
The likes of Lee and Mavies’s talent were really diluted under Dougie Freedman. Since the arrival of Neil Lenno these two have really shone and I want to seem them both in the Championship Team of the Season come the end of the season.
When Owen Coyle was sacked (I know I’m toing and froing a bit around different regimes, apologies) he said that he reckoned had he been given until the end of the season he would’ve probably got the team promoted. I agree.
While we were playing really well towards the end of the 2012-2013 season under Freedman, 7th place can still be considered a real under achievement given the stature of our squad then
We could have fielded the following team: Bodgan, Ricketts, Mills, Dawson, Alonso, Spearing, Mavies, Petrov, Eagles, Lee, SKD.
Under Lennon’s management I really do believe that we would have been promoted.
Lennon’s taken with enough time to catapult us up the league. While are squad isn’t what it could’ve and should’ve been. We have some fantastic players.
I feel that Dougie felt that we weren’t a Premier League club and that ultimately cost us.
By no means am I saying that we are the ‘Manchester United’ of the Championship, but we are one of the bigger clubs. I think (let’s pretend Coyle was amazing and like Ferguson) after Coyle was sacked we had the opportunity to replace him with someone brilliant in this division. However we chose Freedman (who is like David Moyes- from a smaller club and the inability to sign top Championship players). We then came to our senses and hired Neil Lennon (Louis Van Gaal) while in this occasion, Lennon has been more successful than his Dutch Man Utd counterpart.
Lennon recognises that we are a team that wants to and could be good enough to play in the Premier League. He wouldn’t have taken this job on if he thought we’d be relegated, that would wipe all of the good work he did at Celtic off his CV.
What do you think? Leave your thoughts below.
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