YOU’D assume Neil Lennon is getting used to cruel twists by now – but surely none so brutal as seeing Gary Hooper wheeling away in delight on Saturday.

The striker he had plucked from League One football with Scunthorpe United, taken to Celtic, and pushed to the edge of England honours? You couldn’t have scripted an ending like this.

Hooper had scored 82 goals in three seasons at Parkhead. No wonder Lennon did his best to tempt him to the Macron Stadium earlier this season after seeing him kicking his heels on the bench at Carrow Road.

How Lennon must have wished he’d stayed in reserve for Alex Neil’s promotion chasers once again instead of inflicting a second home defeat of his Wanderers career on his former boss.

“He is the best striker I have worked with,” said Lennon. “I got him from Scunthorpe for £1.5 million and sold him for £6m.

“He scored all kinds of goals for me at the highest level. He is a brilliant player. I am surprised he is not being used more.

“Alex has his own way of playing and it is obviously working. But we can’t keep giving away last minute goals.”

Lennon has explained away goals like this on a handful of occasions this season – and far too often for his liking.

Injury time has cost Wanderers 12 points and eight places in the table. Little wonder, then, his post-match interview was conducted through gritted teeth.

“It is a lack of moral fibre,” he seethed. “And I really have to be careful how I go about it because I don’t want to put myself or the club in a bad light.

“However, it is totally unacceptable that with two minutes to go we can leave a £6million striker in front of goal with a free shot.

“It is not as though Norwich cut us open with a brilliant piece of football. It was a diagonal ball, a knock down and Gary is in acres.

“It is not good enough even though we are not far away. It was criminal defending and it is happening far too often.”

Lennon had put on Neil Danns for Eidur Gudjohnsen in the last 10 minutes and also introduced fresh legs in the form of Saidy Janko.

The Northern Irishman felt there was little else he could have done to safeguard a result.

“As a manager, what else I am supposed to do – go on there and board the goal up?” he said. “As soon as that board goes up, it should be a case of ‘see it out’.

“I thought it was cruel. I wasn’t happy with what we did in the final third at times, we had chances in the second half, and I thought we looked the better team.

“I didn’t think we were in any danger at all in the second half but I guess with our track record, you can never say that.

“But to concede a goal like that with such a lack of quality in the last few minutes is heartbreaking.

“We’ve matched probably the best team in the league there and let ourselves down at the last minute.”