Neil Lennon doesn't believe he needs to win Rangers game to land permanent Celtic job

Instead, the 47-year-old will prioritise delivering the treble by completing the league title and the Scottish Cup, the bigger achievement of which he expects would surpass the result of one stand alone game.

There has been a school of thought this week that Lennon needs to serve up a commanding win on Sunday afternoon, but he anticipates that any decision on his long-term future will not be taken on the back of an isolated result, regardless of the magnitude of the occasion.

“I’m not convinced,” said Lennon ahead of tomorrow’s game. “I don’t think my future is based on the result of one game or two games against Rangers.

“It’ll be whole package over the three months I’ll have been in charge.

“There is a lot of speculation surrounding that, but that’s all it is. Speculation and conjecture and I’ve obviously taken no notice of it.

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“Of course I’ll be judged, yeah. These are the games that matter and the ones everyone talks about whether it be the performances of players, these are the ones that people remember.”

Meanwhile, Lennon’s preparation for this weekend’s game have been hindered by a fresh injury concern for Kieran Tierney.

The Scotland internationalist was expected to make the game after returning from early from international duty last week. Tierney did not play against Kazakhstan and flew back to Glasgow rather than go on to San Marino with the rest of the squad but after initially feeling that the fullback would make the game, Lennon has revealed there have been fresh concerns over his ongoing pelvic and hip issue.

Tierney missed two months of the season with the same complaint and returned to action only at the end of February. He had looked uncomfortable in Celtic’s last outing against Dundee at Dens Park and Lennon has confirmed that there are ongoing concerns about his situation.

unwilling to rule Tierney out entirely, Lennon will give the player another 24 hours before making a decision but in the long-term he will look to rest him as much as he can between now and the end of the season.

“Tierney had a bit of a reaction on Friday,” said Lennon. “He looked a bit uncomfortable and we will have to wait and see how he is. He probably needs a rest. We’ll try and get him over the line as quickly as possible and shut him down for a while.

“I’m not ruling him out, but it didn’t look great on Friday morning. We’ll see. It’ll be judged by the medical team as well.”

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Meanwhile, Tom Rogic and Olivier Ntcham are in contention to feature at some point. Given the length of time both have been out, it seems unlikely that either will start the game but they have come through the last week of training.

Rogic has not played this year after picking up a knee injury when he was on international duty with Australia at the Asian Cup while Ntcham has not played since the December defeat to Rangers.

“Rogic has been training and Ntcham has had a good week as well,” said Lennon.

“[Filip] Benkovic is still a little bit ginger on his foot, but Simunovic is back in training, so we have a few bodies back and the quality players coming back has given the squad a massive boost. Nir Bitton won’t make it, but James Forrest will be alright.”

Meanwhile, Leigh Griffiths is back training after a four-month absence to deal with personal issues. Lennon is quietly optimistic of getting the striker back before the end of the season but will not put any undue pressure on the Scotland internationalist.

“You never know with Griff,” he said. “He’s deep. I’ve known him a long time, I brought him here and I know what player he is and what a player he can be. His focus now is to get back into the condition to be that player again but he has the opportunity to do that.

“He is coping and it can’t have been easy for him. We are all human beings and have our frailties and unfortunately sometimes they are blown out in the public eye but he is coping with it as best he can.

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“He has got a bit of work to do in terms of his conditioning but he is working very hard.

“He is in twice a day now and it will be that for the next couple of weeks. We will assess him as we go along. You hope that we can get him on the pitch before the end of the season but there are no guarantees of that.

“We don’t want to bring him back and he gets re-injured so he has to get himself into the best physical condition and at the minute he is knuckling down and preparing to do that. It is great seeing him back in and around the place. We missed him. He can get back to his routine life.”