'Disrespectful': Bullish Neil Lennon takes umbrage at Celtic-Dunfermline narrative

The love that the Dunfermline Athletic manager has for the man who has helped shape his football career more than any other remains unconditional.

Were it not for O’Neill, Lennon would probably never have ended up at Leicester City and would likely not have then followed his countryman to Celtic where he enjoyed enduring success as a player and then as manager. It is a debt of gratitude that could never be repaid.

The hate element of their relationship, then, refers not to the man but the mission. O’Neill has returned to Celtic this season to serve twice as interim manager and, against all odds, delivered another league title to Parkhead. The deification of a manager already held in the highest of esteems by supporters for his trophy-laden first spell 20 years ago has soared to new levels over recent months.

There is an expectation now that O’Neill will add the Scottish Cup to that haul on Saturday, the completion of a domestic double that only the most optimistic of Celtic backers could have imagined when they were mired in the depths of Wilfried Nancy’s wretched but mercifully brief tenure just five months ago.

Standing in the way of that ambition, however, is Lennon. That has naturally lent itself to an obvious cup final narrative that, in many people’s eyes, concludes with Dunfermline putting up a plucky fight before being swept aside by a dominant Celtic, with O’Neill then hoisted high on his players’ shoulders like Sylvester Stallone at the end of Escape to Victory.

This is the part of the story that Lennon is less keen on. Like O’Neill, the former midfielder is articulate, humorous, shrewd and smart. The pair also share a sense of spikiness, where the eyes narrow, the jaw juts out in an air of defiance. It did so at Hampden on Thursday afternoon when the suggestion was made to Lennon that this was a final between “master and apprentice”.

Now 54-years-old and having been a coach or manager for the best part of 20 years, Lennon was never going to let that just slide.

“I find the master versus apprentice thing disrespectful,” he said with typical steeliness. “I’m nobody’s apprentice. Martin has won the European Cup as a player and been in umpteen cup finals as a player and manager. So, if you want to call it master and apprentice, I get it. But I’m getting a bit old to be an apprentice.

Don’t dismiss Dunfermline

“I’m an underdog? I have won other things as well, you know. I haven’t just beaten big teams, I’ve beaten a lot of teams. I’ve heard a lot of comments this week about Martin picking up the trophy with Callum McGregor and how if he was at Celtic earlier in the season, he’d be winning a treble.

“But don’t dismiss us. We’re the underdogs but underdogs can bite. Does it annoy me? Yeah. So, it just adds fuel for me, which is great. It’s disrespectful, which I don’t mind. We’ll come with an inner belief that we can achieve something on Saturday.”

On O’Neill himself, Lennon could not have been more complimentary. It’s probably not helpful to have to talk up the other man in the opposing dug-out when you have to try to outfox him in the days ahead. But how could Lennon be anything other than effusive in his praise of the man who has helped mould him into the person he is today? So what has he learned from O’Neill over the decades?

“How to win football matches, how to manage,” he added. “The game itself, the psychology of the game, the tactical side, the media side, the intellectual side of the game. Do you want me to go on?

“Also, his humour. It’s the winning but also suffering defeats and coming back for me. That mentality. He teaches you how to win. I was very lucky to have 10 years of Martin in his pomp.

“Everyone talks about what he did at Celtic but what he did at Leicester was incredible. Promotion then four top 10 finishes in the Premier League and three League Cup Finals.

“And he did it on a fraction of a budget compared to others. If that was a modern day manager now, he’d be going to Bayern Munich. I loved it and then he came up here and changed the face of Scottish football with the team that he built.

“It’s him against him on Saturday in terms of my own philosophy in the game. I have to pay tribute to a lot of other managers like Dario Gradi, Howard Kendall, and obviously Gordon Strachan who had a big impact on me as well. But over the course of my career, Martin’s had the biggest influence on me by a long way.”

Lennon, though, will not think twice about ruining O’Neill and Celtic’s big day if he can. Dunfermline have won the Scottish Cup just twice in their history – 1961 with Jock Stein as manager and then 1968 during a decade when Alex Ferguson was also strutting his stuff at East End Park – and it would mean the world to Lennon if he could add another.

“There are pictures everywhere of the team from the 1960s, of Fergie and Jock Stein. There’s history there but we want to make more history. Where would this rank in my career if we win? The best. We’ve come a long way in a short space of time. But we’re here and we want to make it count. I don’t want to be a gallant loser.”

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