Give Neil Lennon the Celtic job now.

What is the point in waiting until the summer? What is the point in having him playing under this kind of pressure between now and the end of the season?

Everybody knows Lennon knows the club. He understands everything about the club but more than that, he also understands what it takes to be a successful Celtic player and a successful Celtic manager. He has been over the course before.

I also think that in his second stint at Celtic he will be older and wiser. I don’t think he has every lost that feisty, passionate side to him and I don’t think that you would want him to but what I do think is that he has channelled it in the right direction.

You saw him at Tynecastle, a ground where he has a fair old bit of history. He was assaulted by some lout who jumped on him one night and then he was hit by a coin there just earlier in the season. Yet, when Celtic scored a last minute winner on Wednesday night he was on his best behaviour.

It was the same at Easter Road.

But these two grounds are places where Celtic haven’t won this season. In fact, they hadn’t won in Leith since January 2014. So he has gone in, he has the respect of the players, he has the support of the Celtic support and it makes perfect sense for me to avoid any hanging about it.

Just give him the job and let him get on with it.

Who else are you going to get in? I don’t see too many Premier League or credible European managers out there who would not cost a fortune to get in – and want a fortune to spend in the transfer market.

I’ve heard a few people mention Davie Moyes. Davie Moyes? Give me a break. The job should be Lennon’s.

Celtic have a huge rebuilding job facing them this summer. You have a significant part of the team who will go. Dedryck Boyata is reported to be on Brendan Rodgers’ wanted list at Leicester but regardless of whether that is accurate or not, he will leave Celtic. Filip Benkovic will go back to Leicester as was always the plan so right away you are looking at Champions League qualifiers without a central defence.

Making a call now on the job would enable all that planning to start now. Who do you want to keep, who is going and who are your targets that you want to get in, and get in quickly.

There’s also things like summer training camps, pre-season games, all sorts of things that will need attention and ideally you want the manager who is walking out into those crucial qualification games to sort them.

I fully expect that Neil will pick up seamlessly where Brendan has left off. I think we have already seen that with the performances in the two games.

He will get them over the line to the league and I suspect he will get his hands on the Scottish Cup too but there is a pressure that comes with not knowing what the long-term is.

We all know that there is pressure in every game you play or manager at Celtic but if you feel like you are auditioning for the job then it adds another layer to that.

Just make the call and move on.

Timothy Weah, Oliver Burke and Jeremy Toljan will also go back to their respective clubs and there is a decision to be made on Mikael Lustig. So you need to start getting the groundwork for this sorted now.

This is a huge month coming up. It is a month that finishes with the game against Rangers at Celtic Park and that really does shape how the final weeks of the campaign play out.

If I were standing in Peter Lawwell and Dermot Desmond’s shoes, I’d be handing Lennon the contract just now. They know what they are getting. They know he can do it.

I think he will be a better manager than the one who left. He has been shaped in a different way by Bolton and by Hibs and he already proven himself at the club. This is a manager who was able to mastermind a win over Barcelona when he was Celtic manager.

I am not going to disparage Brendan’s time in any way because I think he was an outstanding Celtic manager who brought so much success to the club but he never quite managed to pull off a big European result like that.

His credentials are there. His will to win, his genuine affinity with the club and his delight at getting a second bite of the cherry are there to see.

Give him the job now and be done with it.