NEIL Lennon’s cats ducked for cover when he picked up an unwanted hat-trick of defeats for the first time in his managerial career on Tuesday night.

The Northern Irishman has taken charge of 253 games between Celtic and Wanderers, and is yet to chalk up a 50th loss.

He is hoping that milestone will not be passed against Brighton this afternoon – but accepts that the days of going months unbeaten as he did in the SPL at Parkhead are in the past, at least for now.

Losses to Watford, Nottingham Forest and Middlesbrough meant Lennon has been on the wrong side of three consecutive league results for the first time since taking charge of Celtic nearly five years ago.

When he first walked through the doors at the Macron Stadium Lennon admitted he might need to acclimatise to the odd defeat – but amidst the toughest run of his Wanderers career to date, he told The Bolton News that he is starting to understand the task at hand.

“I knew it would come sometime,” he reflected, on his first-ever triple defeat.

“It isn’t nice. It isn’t something I’m used to, but I’m philosophical about it.

“The manner of the defeats is what I have to look at – Watford, good performance, Forest, dreadful performance, Middlesbrough, decent performance.

“It was a mixed bag but that’s basically what this team is about at the moment. We’re trying to find that vein of consistency again.

“We have played teams going for promotion – their teams are very strong at the moment and even if we had all of our players fit, this would have been a very difficult run.

“We’re not in the best of form but the performances show me we can again.”

Lennon’s tenure at Wanderers has been typified by his straight-talking, unapologetic appraisals of his side’s performances, both good and bad.

“I’ve got two cats – they’re black and blue at the minute,” he joked.

“I have had to bite my tongue a bit. Referee’s performance the other night wasn’t great and I think some of them at this level get influenced by home crowds. But I’m not going to blame referees for everything that has gone wrong; we need to take a look at ourselves too.”

That introspection may have to wait until the summer when Lennon feels he will have a better view of just how much he needs to change his squad to get to where he wants to be.

“We’re not going to make the play-offs now and maybe we have to say to ourselves ‘we’re not top six or seven’ but we need to find out where we are,” he said.

“By the end of the season we will know. The table doesn’t lie to you and then we’ll build on that, go from there.

“We know there’s room for improvement but there have been encouraging signs.”

Wanderers go into this afternoon’s game having won just once in seven games, dropping to 19th in the table and just six points off the bottom three.

But Lennon has seen enough to suggest his squad can avoid any serious brush with danger – and has sought out the help of his backroom staff to give their opinions on how to solve the current slump.

“Your whole staff help whether it’s Johan, Garry, LT the goalie coach, chief scouts or even your development coaches and medical team,” he said.

“We all sit there and analyse the team collectively and as individuals. Sometimes you can over-analyse it, so you have to be careful not to over-think things when you are going through a difficult spell.

“I’ve been through sticky patches before – I always go back to being 15 points behind Rangers and 3-0 down at Kilmarnock thinking ‘where am I going from here?’

“But you find a way through. All you need is a performance and a win to get going again.

“It isn’t the end of the world as far as I’m concerned but losing was something I knew when I took the job on I might need to get more used to.

“It doesn’t take a lot to change it. One win, one performance and all of a sudden things look better. Hopefully we can get that against Brighton and then set ourselves up for a good run-in.”