Former Celtic manager Neil Lennon has said that he took the decision to lessen Jim McGuinness' workload at the club so that the Donegal manager could concentrate on his commitments to his county.
McGuinness was hired as a performance analyst by the club in November 2012, while Lennon was in charge, something which the former Northern Ireland player was very much in favour of. In a column in the Irish Examiner ahead of the All Ireland final, Lennon said that, although he would have liked to have seen more of McGuinness in Glasgow, he knew there was only ever going to be one winner if the two roles were put up against each other.
There was a lot of talk that he couldn’t do both. We decided Donegal would come first, and he would work predominantly with the younger players at the club.
If he wasn’t so committed to his county, of course, he would have had a bigger role with us. The problem was I didn’t want him to be in the line of fire and getting criticism that he wasn’t giving his all to Donegal and giving too much to Celtic.
During Lennon's time in charge, McGuinness's key role was analysing the training performances of the younger players and Lennon says that it's no surprise that he is being sought out to do more and more work with the first team.
His work is coming to the surface now. Liam Henderson is now part of the first team squad. Darnell Fisher, Callum McGregor... his fingerprints are on a lot of what is coming through at the club.
We felt we got the balance right and from what I hear, he’s doing very well at the club and may now even be promoted to work with the first team on a more regular basis.
Lennon also revealed that he keeps in regular contact with the Donegal man and is even hoping to catch the final on Sunday, one which he feels is Donegal's for the taking.
I hope to get to the game tomorrow and see him go on and win another All-Ireland. He and his players have it in them.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHeqK1UMjEQ
