The Republic of Ireland national team are set to begin the search for their next manager. Stephen Kenny is headed for the exit door. His side were not able to qualify for EURO 2024. And now, it remains to be seen who ends up taking his place in the hot seat. Interestingly, a couple of Celtic heroes appear to be favourites for the job.
Of course, such a process is expected to take some time. But bookies have already named their early favourites for the Republic of Ireland job.
Neil Lennon is one of them. The Northern Irishman has been the manager of Celtic on a couple of occasions and won a lot of trophies at Parkhead. Of course, his time in the hot seat is not remembered as fondly because of the manner in which things ended, with the club failing to win 10IAR under his watch.
The second one is Roy Keane. Of course, he is best known for his legendary time at Manchester United. But he did spend some time at Parkhead as well and won a couple of trophies while wearing the Celtic jersey. It proved to be the last club he played for before retiring.
Two Celtic heroes favourites to become Ireland manager
It remains to be seen if either Lennon or Keane end up as the Republic of Ireland manager. Both of them were top level players.
But there are certainly question marks about how they would do in the managerial job. That being said, Lennon has a lot more experience out of the two.
Lennon won a lot of silverware as Celtic manager but that is perhaps the norm. He also won the Scottish Championship with Hibernian and the Cypriot Cup with Omonia Nicosia.
On the other hand, Keane managed Sunderland and Ipswich Town. But the last of those was in 2011. Since then, the Irishman has only had coaching jobs.