CHRIS SUTTON has painted a damning picture of Neil Lennon’s second spell at Celtic.

The former Celtic striker believes the manager was up against it from the outset when he was NOT allowed to pick his own backroom team.

Damien Duff and John Kennedy were given to Neil with no opportunity to bring in his own men with who he’s built a rapport over the years.

Latterly, Gavin Strachan came in but it’s rumoured Neil Lennon had very little say on that appointment either. This isn’t a dig at any of the guys who were in these roles but if you’re the manager, you want your people around you when you take on a top job like the one at Celtic.

Sutton puts it well when he says the club was dictating to the manager instead of the other way about. Considering the hard time executives had with a manager who dictates to them when Brendan Rodgers was in the job, they went for someone who would be delighted just to be back in the fold.

“Many of the players are the same ones with which he managed to win nine and they have killed him this season. The recruitment team have also killed him. Some of the signings have been nowhere near it. Vasilis Barkas. Albian Ajeti. £10 million on two guys who can’t get into the team.” Sutton wrote in his Record Sport Column.

“I wondered for long spells how much of that was down to him. I never felt he was able to get his own people into the building after he returned when Brendan Rodgers quit. It was almost like he’d come back with orders not to be himself. And not to have his own people

“Where were the Johan Mjalllbys or Garry Parkers to tell him what was what? Who was signing the players for him? It was a job impossible to turn down, yet from the outside it looked like a club dictating to a boss from the outset as opposed to the other way around.”

Sutton doesn’t take any delight in saying the Celtic manager had run his course at the club but that’s exactly what happened. No, this season wasn’t all Neil Lennon’s fault, but the writing had been on the wall for some time.