Neil Lennon has revealed just how close he came to securing the signature of Watford striker Troy Deeney.
Lennon has admitted he was keen on acquiring the England cap during his first spell in charge of the Hoops, and made in-roads towards signing the target-man forward.
Alas, Lennon obviously failed to secure Deeney's signature, with the now 32-year-old veteran hitman looking set to see out his career with newly-promoted Premier League outfit Watford.
But things could've gone different for Deeney, who is about to enter his 11th season as a Hornets players, if Lennon had gotten his way back in the summer of 2013.
Speaking whilst appearing on talkSPORT as a pundit, Lennon explained: "I was a big fan of Troy in my first spell as manager.
"He was the type of striker that I liked. I went down to watch him in that very famous play-off game against Leicester.
"I was there that day when Leicester missed the penalty and 30 seconds later Troy has put Watford to Wembley.
"Listen, finances dictated everything and whether Troy would have wanted to come or not is another thing but we were huge admirers of him at the time.
"He was in his prime then, mid-20s or something like that."
In response, Deeney, also a talkSPORT pundit, didn't give away much, saying: "Yeah I spoke to Neil a few times. We saw each other in Portugal a few years back.
"But our last encounter football-wise was, he was at Bolton and I was on the bench, fuming.
"I think it was 3-3 when I came on and he said to me, 'don't you dare score', and I ended up scoring the winner and we beat them 4-3."
