WHEN Wanderers sought a replacement for Dougie Freedman they were rock bottom of the Championship with five points from 10 games.

Even after the Scot’s departure had been confirmed, protests continued from supporters who felt the blame should be shared at boardroom level.

A fragmented and under-performing squad, branded “not good enough” by the outgoing boss was showing very little fight. Those heady days of Premier League football had never seemed so far away.

This wasn’t a job for a shrinking violet, and thankfully Wanderers didn’t get one.

Malky Mackay and Chris Hughton had been sounded out as candidates before Neil Lennon stepped forward, much to the surprise of football in general.

The Northern Irishman had been looking to get in at Premier League level since leaving a trophy-laden spell Celtic but few in the game expected him to take up a challenge like the one at Wanderers.

Putting the brakes on talks with a club in the Middle East, negotiations with the former Leicester City midfielder and his right-hand men Johan Mjallby and Garry Parker moved forward quickly. This was the real deal – and Whites fans reacted with excitement.

Lennon quickly started to mend the rifts between fans and their club, his straight-talking style embraced quickly by those who had become tired of a well-worn narrative under Freedman.

His first game hinted that the future would be anything but dull. Matt Mills’ header ensured a first win of the season for Wanderers at Birmingham but it was the manager – sent to the stands for leaving his technical area too often – who grabbed the headlines.

“Maybe I’ve got a little to learn about how things work in England,” he grinned after the game, escaping any further punishment from the FA.

Lennon wouldn’t get the same mass media scrutiny he got at Celtic but his press conferences became busier than they had been for years.

Fans hung on his every word as the Northern Irishman described how he was going to put some pride back into the town. And on the pitch, his plan appeared to be working well.

There were setbacks – defeats at Charlton and Norwich highlighted an incompatibility between the high-tempo style of football Lennon wanted to play and the more patient stuff the Whites had been used to.

And there were casualties too. Medo Kamara didn’t get a sniff of the first team before being loaned out to Israel, while skipper Jay Spearing was quickly jettisoned to Blackburn Rovers.

Joe Mason, Rob Hall and Liam Trotter were also shelved as Lennon demanded more power and pace from the players on the pitch.

Others flourished. Darren Pratley enjoyed the most productive spell of his Wanderers career to date, discovering the goal touch he had once shown at Swansea City.

Neil Danns was switched to a holding midfield role and instantly looked more involved while Craig Davies suddenly packed a goalscoring punch, having struggled to convince Freedman he was worth a regular start.

Most notably, though, Wanderers’ youth started to shine.

During the previous manager’s reign the academy and development squad had been pushed away from the first-team base at Euxton, causing a big rift within the club.

Lennon’s first act was to give all players a clean slate. Josh Vela was the first to take full advantage, even if it was in an unfamiliar right-back role.

Max Clayton, Zach Clough and later Tom Walker all made a mockery of the previous regime’s opinion that they were not ready for life at the bottom end of the Championship and when Cardiff, Wigan, Huddersfield, Millwall, Blackburn were despatched by Christmas, there was a genuine sense that anything was possible.

Youth was king – but those at the opposite end of the age spectrum were also taking their fair share of the headlines.

Eidur Gudjohnsen made an emotional return, 14 years after he first left Bolton for Chelsea, and became a significant role model within the squad. And Emile Heskey – so long reviled among the Bolton fans for keeping Kevin Davies out of the England team – was welcomed in as a Wanderer, teaming up again with his old Leicester team-mate Lennon.

Heskey’s goal on debut, created by Gudjohnsen, nearly broke the internet.

If only those happy times could have continued. January would be prove to be a landmark month for the club and Lennon.

His side fought valiantly to earn a replay against Liverpool at Anfield in the FA Cup and came within a whisker of taking the second game to extra time. There would be no White Hot upset but the national exposure brought on the club at the time was worth its weight in gold.

Unfortunately, that mammoth effort also took a considerable toll on the squad.

Hammered at Rotherham a few days after the Anfield game, Pratley then suffered a serious hamstring injury at Wolves to rule himself out of the rest of the season.

The injuries piled up from there. Clayton, Clough, Kevin McNaughton, David Wheater, both senior goalkeepers in Andy Lonergan and Adam Bogdan. It was an unprecedented situation, forcing Lennon to grab players from far and wide on loan.

The capture of Adam Le Fondre from Cardiff City was an impressive one. Though the season petered out to nothing in the end, his tally of eight goals proved exactly why he is regarded as one of the best poachers outside the Premier League.

Andy Kellett was involved in deadline day’s most incredible swap deal, joining Manchester United on loan in a move that saw Saidy Janko come the other way.

Janko would score a sensational goal against Fulham but injury problems of his own perhaps prevented us from seeing his true quality on the pitch.

Barry Bannan, Simeon Slavchev, Rochinha, Ben Amos, Paddy McCarthy – Wanderers were filled to the gills with other clubs’ players as they frantically tried to plug gaps left by injuries of their own.

Results predictably dipped. And fanciful talk of play-offs had disappeared by mid-February.

While Wanderers were never again seriously in trouble of relegation, Lennon found in the last couple of months the true extent of the rebuilding job at hand.

His initial impact had been enough to get the club safe, after which it became all too familiar.

Lennon dealt swiftly and decisively with a brief outbreak of indiscipline in his squad when midfielders Bannan and Danns caused a disturbance at the club’s hotel – axing both players from the side that drew at Brentford.

One wonders whether he will be equally ruthless this summer when it comes to reassembling a squad with ambition that can match his own?

The financial picture at Wanderers looks no brighter than it did when he arrived and so if progress is to be made next season, Lennon will need to draw on every ounce of that winning mentality he honed at Parkhead.

Turning this particular ship will take time. But you’d back it to happen with him at the helm.