Fulham Opinion: Cottagers should appoint Neil Lennon as the manager
According to The Scottish Sun, Fulham have shortlisted Celtic manager Neil Lennon as a potential candidate to take up the job at Craven Cottage on a permanent basis at the end of the season.
The Cottagers are set for a season in the Championship next term after getting relegated from the Premier League and Fulham are considering the possibility of appointing the former Northern Irish international as the new full-time manager in the summer.
Scott Parker is currently in charge on a temporary basis at Craven Cottage following the dismissal of Claudio Ranieri but the club hierarchy believe that he hasn’t done anything significant to convince them to retain him at the helm of affairs beyond the end of the current season.
Lennon, on the other hand, took over as the interim manager at Parkhead last month following the departure of Brendan Rodgers to Leicester City. Rodgers left Celtic in a strong position to win the Scottish Premiership title and the 47-year-old former club legend has ensured that the Hoops cruise to the domestic title.
The Scottish Sun also reports that Lennon is in pole position to land the permanent job at Celtic after guiding the team to a series of impressive results in recent weeks and he would only consider a position at another club should the Hoops refuse to keep him at the club for the foreseeable future.
Lennon enjoyed a trophy-laden spell at Parkhead as a player and emulated that feat as a manager earlier in his career when he guided the Hoops to 3 consecutive Scottish Premiership titles and 2 Scottish Cup triumphs between 2010 and 2014.
His only previous managerial experience in England came in the Championship at Bolton Wanderers between 2014 to 2016, though his time at the Reebok Stadium was blighted by off-the-field controversies. He left Bolton on mutual consent following a series of unimpressive results and returned to Scotland with Hibernian where he won the 2016-17 Scottish Championship.
To put things into perspective, Fulham should not have any second thoughts about replacing Parker with Neil Lennon. The 47-year-old can bring that winning mentality back to Craven Cottage after a disastrous season in the Premier League and he certainly has all that it takes to guide the west London outfit back to the top flight in the very first chance.
During his first spell at Parkhead as a manager, Lennon made a name for himself with his brave decision-making and tactical flexibility, completing a complete overhaul of Celtic’s squad in the summer of 2010.
The Northern Irishman sold plenty of experienced players like Artur Boruc and Aiden McGeady and brought in several talented, cheap and little-known players like Beram Kayal, Emilio Izaguirre, Gary Hooper, Daniel Majstorovic and many others to the club, most of whom went on to enjoy a successful spell at Parkhead.
Lennon likes to target free-agents and bargain deals in the transfer market, which is exactly the kind of approach Fulham need to adopt in the summer. It is not very often that a club gets relegated after spending close to a 100 million but Fulham have managed to do so.
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Aleksandar Mitrovic, Jean Michael Seri, Calum Chambers, Tom Cairney, Andre Schurrle, Ryan Sessegnon and Luciano Vietto are all expected to leave the club after getting relegated and Lennon’s presence at the helm of affairs would help Fulham deal with such a major clear-out of players.
Moreover, he knows how to extract the best out of the existing players at the club, while also having a good reputation of being able to bring up talented players from the academy.
The 47-year-old certainly has the acumen and the charisma to stabilize things at Craven Cottage and get the club back to the top flight in the first time of asking.
