Neil Lennon has insisted that he will always “love” Celtic – but he will not shy away from putting the boot into his former team, if necessary.

The former Hoops player and boss has taken over from Alan Stubbs at Easter Road and he is fully focused on making Hibs a top four club in the Ladbrokes Premiership.

“My whole focus now is Hibs,” he said. “ I love Celtic and always will but I’m now at Hibs and I’ll do all I can to win football games for Hibs whether that’s against Celtic, Rangers, Hearts or Brechin City. This is my job now and my whole focus is now on Hibernian.”

Read more: Hibs should be a top four Premiership side, says Neil LennonGlasgow Times: Neil Lennon is unveiled as the new Hibernian manager.

As Brendan Rodgers got his feet under the desk at Lennoxtown, he revealed that he would be sounding Lennon out for a bit of advice. The two have yet to chat, but there could be a few conversations between them on the horizon.

“We’ve missed each other about three times but I will give him a ring,” said Lennon. “I’m sure he’s pretty busy getting used to life in Glasgow. We will definitely catch up with each other eventually.”

One of the topics of conversation could be midfielder Liam Henderson who spent last season on loan in Edinburgh. The player is due to return to the club for pre-season training in June 20th although Lennon has not given up on having him back in the green of Hibs this term.

“He’ll want to impress Brendan and he’ll want to have a good look at him,” he said. “It might be difficult. I don’t want to talk about players at other clubs at the minute.”

He doesn’t, however, expect to team up with Anthony Stokes in the near future.Glasgow Times: 09/06/16 
EASTER ROAD STADIUM - EDINBURGH
Neil Lennon is unveiled as the new Hibernian manager

The striker has been released by Celtic after spending the latter half of the campaign on loan at Easter Road. He is wanted by Rotherham where Alan Stubbs has gone, and Lennon has admitted that finances would make it difficult for the striker to join him at Hibs.

“Stokes has been released and Henderson is affiliated with another club,” said Lennon. “I want to bring in quality players that will suit the league and have the temperament we want here. Those two appeal but I doubt we could do Stokesy financially.”

Meanwhile, Lennon has no regrets about the trajectory over his managerial career.

He has been chastened by the experience at Bolton after the success he enjoyed with Celtic, but he exhibited a hunger and enthusiasm as he was paraded into his new role yesterday afternoon.

“Listen if you got offered the Celtic job would you take it?” he said. “I was 38 when I got offered it. There was no way I was going to turn it down, maybe not get offered it again. So we made the most of what we had at Celtic. Four years later we had championships, cups. We sold players for millions that we bought for next to nothing.Glasgow Times: Neil Lennon: Hibs should be a top four side. Photo: John Linton/PA Wire.

“We made a real success of that which sometimes gets overlooked. There’s an expectation. There’s an expectation here at Hibs too. People think it’s easy but it’s not.”

And the former Northern Ireland internationalist will draw on his experience with Celtic to mould a Hibs team that he believes can make an impact on the Scottish game.

“The team I played in at Celtic and the team I managed had big centre halves, you had me and then you had the players like the [Lubo] Moravicks, the [Henrik] Larssons, the [Aiden] McGeadys. In the team I managed you had your [Gary] Hoopers, you had solidity in [Victor] Wanyama and a a good goalkeeper, but then you had your players who could play and make a difference.

"It’s trying to get that mix right. There is maybe a little bit of imbalance that we overplay. That’s maybe a criticism that has been aimed at the team. I haven’t seen enough of them to make that assumption. But this is what I’m hearing so maybe we need to mix things up a little bit.”