Even though he was fired by the Easter Road club only a few weeks ago, Lee Johnson may be ready to make a quick return to the coaching chair.
Less than two weeks after being fired from his position at Easter Road, former Hibs manager Lee Johnson is apparently in line to take over as the manager of an English Football League team.
According to Football Insider, Scott Brown, a former player for Celtic and Hibs who was recently fired, will be replaced by the 42-year-old as the new manager of Fleetwood Town. The Lancashire team is currently in 23rd place in EFL League One after losing five and drawing one of its first six games.
Johnson ‘impressed’ at a job interview on Thursday, and it is now being said that he has been given the position. Karl Robinson, a former manager of Oxford United and MK Dons who most recently served as Sam Allardyce’s assistant at Leeds United, is also said to have declined the position.
Johnson led Easter Road to a fifth-place Scottish Premiership finish in May 2022, which was enough to secure European football. Johnson served as head coach at Easter Road for just over a year. But because of the team’s erratic play during his time, he didn’t have many fans heading into the 2023–24 campaign, and the decision to fire him came after they dropped their first three league games.
The former Sunderland manager was fired following losses at home to St Mirren and Livingston, an away loss to Motherwell, and a 5-0 humiliation at the hands of Aston Villa in their UEFA Europa Conference League play-off first leg. Even though they eventually prevailed 7-3 on aggregate, losing their initial European qualifier 2-1 to Andorran minnows Inter Club d’Escaldes didn’t help.
Nick Montgomery appears to be the candidate who Hibs are looking to bring in to replace Johnson. The now-former Fleetwood manager Scott Brown was one of the candidates mentioned by analysts and fans, but the Australian coach is currently the front-runner for the Easter Road position.