Will Lennon f*** us over?

It's no secret that Neil Lennon hankers after managing a Premiership team or Celtic and the work he is doing for us is part of the reputation-building process.
What worries me is that I suspect his top priority is getting a better job.

Whilst we had to endure dire football on the pitch under Freedman at least we could see that he was building for the future recruiting young players and clearing out the deadwood on the wage bill.

Lennon has turned it around on the pitch so we're pretty sure we'll survive, but at what cost?
Riley sold, several youngsters moved on? It would be nice to think this is because Lennon doesn't think them good enough but is it just a wage cutting exercise?

Players like Heskey, Le Fondre and Eidur are not exactly going to be cheap are they? But they could be a short cut to success and certainly help keep our Neil in the limelight.

Supposing Lennon does OK and we scrape a top half finish. That may be enough to convince some club or other to offer him a job in the summer. And where will Lennon leave us?

With half of the youth structure Freedman put in place, several very old players well past their sell by date and a small squad of journeymen.

Is he selling off our remaining assets to support his own cause?

Whether or not we are fucked over depends on where we are when he decides to up sticks. Chances are the young players he's moved on would never have been good enough anyway. He's proved with the likes of Vela and Clough that if a player is good enough he will get a shot.
If you are a player getting towards 20/21 years of age and you are nowhere near good enough for this level yet, then you probably never will be imo.
If he takes us back to the prem at least he will provide good finance for the club to rebuild.
Ultimately though Neil Lennon will do whatever is best for Neil Lennon. He clearly thinks we're a shitty little outfit and he misses the big games involved in managing a big club and has as much as admitted in the paper we are merely a stepping stone to bigger things. 
The fact is I would rather bwfc was used and abused by lennon on the way to the premiership than build for a future in league 2 with freedman.

Bwfc1958 wrote:Whether or not we are fucked over depends on where we are when he decides to up sticks. Chances are the young players he's moved on would never have been good enough anyway. He's proved with the likes of Vela and Clough that if a player is good enough he will get a shot.
If you are a player getting towards 20/21 years of age and you are nowhere near good enough for this level yet, then you probably never will be imo.
If he takes us back to the prem at least he will provide good finance for the club to rebuild.
Ultimately though Neil Lennon will do whatever is best for Neil Lennon. He clearly thinks we're a shitty little outfit and he misses the big games involved in managing a big club and has as much as admitted in the paper we are merely a stepping stone to bigger things. 
The fact is I would rather bwfc was used and abused by lennon on the way to the premiership than build for a future in league 2 with freedman.

Good points but my worry is that NL will be offered a job without getting us promoted and as it stands we're nowhere near good enough.

I must admit that thought had crossed my mind. To build the reputation he wants though, I would think promotion is a necessity, so I'm hoping he'll stick around long enough to achieve it.

He won't want Celtic again mate. He's been there done that. 

An English Prem job might just tempt him away but it would have to be a bigger outfit than us and not a yo-yo team. One of those will only come in if Neil proves a success here and he's not going to do that in half a season. I think we'll start next term and most likely finish it with him at the helm at least. If he then gets approached it'll be because he got us up or had some other success like a major run in the cups and if that happens then so be it. I agree he's a good manager but I don't think he's so awesome we need to be concerned about Real Madrid or Man Utd just yet.

We're Bolton, unless we get taken over by a Russian, we will always be a stepping stone for player and manager. 

I just hope NL is able to have us near the top of the league in his time here.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:We're Bolton, unless we get taken over by a Russian, we will always be a stepping stone for player and manager. 

I just hope NL is able to have us near the top of the league in his time here.

I think he will and he'll have to if he wants to make that next step. I also think despite his love for Celtic his head rules his heart and that he knows managers rarely if ever do as well the second time around. I suspect we'll have Neil for quite a while and we don't need to start worrying about losing him yet.

Watching the match this evening, Lennon is doing an unbelievable job. This is perhaps one of the weakest squad of Bolton players I have seen in the 23 years I have followed Bolton, and yet the team is so well organised and the effort put in is superb.
Lennon really does look quality and I think if Eddie does have money to invest in players he really should do as Lennon can take Bolton up - getting to the Premiership is the only way Eddie will ever get any of his money back.

Michael Bolton wrote:Watching the match this evening, Lennon is doing an unbelievable job. This is perhaps one of the weakest squad of Bolton players I have seen in the 23 years I have followed Bolton, and yet the team is so well organised and the effort put in is superb.
Lennon really does look quality and I think if Eddie does have money to invest in players he really should do as Lennon can take Bolton up - getting to the Premiership is the only way Eddie will ever get any of his money back.

MB in sensible post shocker!!!! seriously if the board have any sense they will back him moderately this window, but give him guarantees that his Summer budget will be adequate enough for him to mount a serious challenge next season, as far as this season is concerned, forget it, Freedman fucked that one up for Lennon.

MartinBWFC wrote:

Michael Bolton wrote:Watching the match this evening, Lennon is doing an unbelievable job. This is perhaps one of the weakest squad of Bolton players I have seen in the 23 years I have followed Bolton, and yet the team is so well organised and the effort put in is superb.
Lennon really does look quality and I think if Eddie does have money to invest in players he really should do as Lennon can take Bolton up - getting to the Premiership is the only way Eddie will ever get any of his money back.

MB in sensible post shocker!!!! seriously if the board have any sense they will back him moderately this window, but give him guarantees that his Summer budget will be adequate enough for him to mount a serious challenge next season, as far as this season is concerned, forget it, Freedman fucked that one up for Lennon.

I don't think the board can really back him with money atm and there's no guarantee they'll be able to in summer. I agree they most definitely should do that but with FFP being what it is and our current financial situation I don't see them being able to do much about it. Obviously a long and money spinning cup run might alter that equation a little but I suspect we're going to be operating on a one out to bring one in basis for quite a while yet.

Just for a moment, imagine Lennon intended to use us as a stepping stone to further his own career - what would his best strategy be?

I would suggest the following steps:

1. Borrow a load of players good enough to get us up the league and get Lennon the plaudits
2. Sell a few contracted players for anything we can get for them and farm out everyone else to pay for the incoming loanees


Wasn't that what just happened?

The only way we could afford to buy these loanees in summer would be if we get promoted. Slavchev alone is around £2 million - more if he does well for us - and there are 6 of them.

So if they all go back to their clubs as expected, what will we be left with?

It's a worry.

We could loan CYL back next season if it doesn't work out for him at Palace i suppose 

i have to say i don't understand your suspicions about Lennon Lusty. Even you must admit he has done a great job getting out of the mess Freedman left us in.

There will be a few off the wage bill in the summer and i bet Andrews was on a very good wage. Add Medo,Spearing and Beckford to that and that creates quite a chunk of money i would bet.

I see where your coming from Lust, and it's a reasonable theory. We're definitely a stepping stone, but your theory doesn't add up for me. Even if he was to do well with the loanees this year there's little to no chance we'll get into the play offs this year, would a premier league club take a punt on him for a good run at the end of the season? If they weren't willing to last summer I don't think so - unless we also have a good run in the FA cup  .

I've said before I think we'll have him for another year or so then he'll be off.

If Lennon was genuinely only interested in furthering his career, why would he have joined us? He could have gone to any number of other clubs that would have been better stepping-stones. And everything he is doing with us smacks of a sincere man of principles.

Using us as a stepping stone is far from insincere, every manager has ambitions and considering he's already managed a 'big' club in the Champions League I'm sure his is to do it with another. It's like Allardyce I'd never begrudge the job he did here but we were never going to hold on to him he was too good and we know full well he thinks he's capable of doing it at the very top.

To Okocha's point of why he chose us, he didn't really have much choice. You can tell Lennon loves the game and will have been desperate to get back into it, but summer passed and he didn't get a prem job and everybody knew that Pulis was going to get the next one that became available. Rather than bide his time he took over at us where (at least on paper) we have all the infrastructure of a premier league side. 

Obviously he can't plan with any certainty but he's bound to be thinking do a job with Bolton and he'll be offered a Premier League job where he can keep working his way up. So far so good, but I don't agree with Lusty he's looking to get it done this summer, he needs to add a little more to his CV with us first ie make us genuine promotion contenders.

We'll always be a stepping stone, for players and managers unless we're taken over by a Sheikh.

Really nothing more to add. If he does move on to a bigger club it means he's done bloody well here which I will accept thats for sure.

HN wrote:We'll always be a stepping stone, for players and managers unless we're taken over by a Sheikh.

Wum

Boggersbelief wrote:

HN wrote:We'll always be a stepping stone, for players and managers unless we're taken over by a Sheikh.

Wum

I believe its still a case of surviving this league, and I think NL is putting us into a place from which we can ensure not just a good place in the league, but one that will give us the most number of options for next season. As others have intimated, getting us up the league doesn't mean he's going to manage a PL club straight away, and lets be honest, they're not gong to hire him for his friendly outgoing persona are they ?