According to the Daily Mail, Celtic are considering Preston North End’s manager Alex Neil as a possible candidate to take over the top job at Parkhead in the summer. The Hoops appointed Neil Lennon up until the end of the season after the departure of Brendan Rodgers to Leicester City. We think Lennon too would be keen to prove his worth and is going to be a strong candidate to take over permanently.
Preston North End have done relatively well under Neil since he took in charge of the club in the summer of 2017. In his first season, the Lilywhites finished seventh and were just two points off the playoff spot. Not many would have termed them as playoff contenders at the start of the season, but Alex Neil with limited budget brought them close.
This season they are again in the mix for the spots though they have lagged behind as they are 12th on the table. However, they are six points off the sixth place so one cannot completely count them out altogether yet.
Neil is just 37 and is one of the youngest managers around the block. But he also has a decent amount of experience as he took Norwich City to the Premier League by winning the Championship playoffs. Therefore for a young manager, he has a fair amount of experience of the Championship and even the Premier League. In fact, Neil started his managerial career in Scotland with Hamilton Academical which earned him a move to the Canaries in 2015.
Neil helped Hamilton move to the top flight, a club where he played as a midfielder for a decade from 2005-2015. Therefore the young manager would be aware of the dynamics and challenges of Scottish football. There is no surprise that he is emerging as a top contender for this job in Scotland.
To go with his achievements, Preston are playing an attractive brand of football, and that should suit Celtic as well. Moreover, he should be able to get a lot out of the current Celtic squad. At Preston, he has worked with players who are not packed with too much talent, but the 37-year-old has been able to bring the best out of them.
He has seen the highs and lows as Norwich went up by winning the playoffs but were relegated the following season in the Premier League. Relegation might be termed as a failure, but a manager ends up learning a lot with a season like that. All in all, this looks like a decent appointment to us as Neil should be hungry for success and is a young manager who boasts a fair amount of experience for such a young manager.
