From BRTH on CQN this afternoon... I missed the game against Ross County but by all accounts I did not miss much in terms of result, attitude or performance, and going by the resulting posts there was much to be unhappy about in terms of tactics and personnel. Let’s separate the wheat from the chaff, the fact from fiction, the truth from the rubbish. There can be no doubt that there are questions to be asked of and answered by Ronny Deila, his backroom team and the board of the PLC. In the first game against Legia I was mystified by a Celtic team who could not string two passes together, could not control the ball at feet at all, and who looked as if the football as a completely alien object. I said that the time, that any organised football team acting on the instructions of a decent coach would beat that Celtic team, and that playing in that fashion Celtic would not win the league. I stick by that assessment. RD made a couple of glaring errors back in those days, one of which was to run with a two man midfield which was overwhelmed, out fought, out thought, outplayed and rendered useless. Further, he clearly struggled to get the best out of the players who had been so successful for Celtic in the previous season. Commons was shocking — and in many respects still is, and a record breaking back four suddenly became rabbits in the headlights and looked as if they could not defend to save themselves. Now, several months on we sit top of the league, are in the cup competitions with a great chance of going to the final of the league cup, and have a glamour tie against a not unbeatable Inter Milan. Under other circumstances, I can see why that would be a cause for celebration and optimism. However, at the moment many of us take the view that the football being served up by Celtic is poor, disjointed, uninspiring and lacking in confidence. The question that I pose is this: Does Deila have a team? My answer is no he doesn’t. Wakaso and Tonev don’t feature. Scepovic is played sparingly and then in only bit part mode. Biton is like the hokey kokey — he’s in, he’s out — let’s shake it all about. Griffiths — is played, not played, played out of position……. Lustig is injured, Matthews out of form or just ring rusty Commons is out of contract, out of favour and out on a limb in terms of his future. Yet we still top the league and so on. The real question is this: Can Deila – with the proper and united backing of the board make us better? I have no idea how to answer this question, but it is the same question that would have to be asked no matter who was the manager at this time. What is certain, is that if the club really has a bigger ambition and vision, those in charge can’t simply sit back and accept what is being served up at the moment — whether we win the league or not. The football product has to be better. However, things are not helped by the fog or rubbish being talked by some like Frank McAvennie and others. Now there is no doubting that Frank is a Celtic fan and was a great player for us. However, when I see him saying that the attendances are way down and that he never played in front of such low crowds and so on I shake my head in wonder. That is just guff and a plain lie. Frank played many times at Celtic Park to crowds of below 20,000. When Fergus built the big stadium he banked on being on the crest of a wave. A Big stadium is great when full, especially on a big European Night, but it can be a mausoleum when empty and the only way to fill it regularly is to put out a product everyone wants to come and see — and to engage the fans in all things Celtic. Celtic’s measure is not within Scottish Football but European Football and by aiming as high as we can in Europe we hopefully drag the rest of Scottish Football with us — especially when teams like Aberdeen and Dundee Utd are debt free and being really properly run for the first time in decades. In case anyone has missed it, there is a revolution taking place right now and before our very eyes in Scottish Football. As I have mentioned Aberdeen, Dundee utd and others are debt free. Hearts, are now a well run club with the owner saying she has every intention of selling the club to the fans. Today Hibs have announced that 51% of the club will be fan owned in the future. There are two things about this to consider. First is the fact that Fergus also sold the club to the fans way back in the day. However, that did not stop the fans per se becoming minority owners as opposed to a block of controlling shareholders as was originally intended. Whatever, the structure of Celtic PLC there seems to me to be an air abroad which is steering clubs more and more towards behaving like community clubs – whether fan owned or not, or even fan owned in name only — and that can only be a good thing in my opinion provided there are some good business heads in and amongst the fan block. Second, the climate in world football is such that there will be some very good players who are just not quite at the very top level of individual players, who under the right manager or coach can be moulded into a very good team. Helennio Herrera and all the other top coaches in Europe in the mid to late sixties who spent big money at the time did not seek to buy any of the eventual Lisbon Lions from Celtic. None of the Aberdeen team who won in Gothenburg were ever on the radar of Real Madrid or Barcelona. The point is that the appointment of a manager — a really good manager — a man manager who can make good players better and good teams great — is about the most important decision and appointment that anyone in charge of a football club can make. I am a born Trotskyist — a believer in perpetual revolution for the better — and it is plain to me that Ronny has to be better than Neil and the next guy has to be better than Ronny. As yet, I can’t see that Ronny is better than Neil in terms of tactics, the acquisition of players, the development of youth, and the management of individuals on the park. Other clubs will rightly strive to improve, and the climate — the end of the Rangers dominated spend like crazy and ruin your club era — is right for other clubs with great potential to be far more successful than they have been for many seasons. Celtic and those who run Celtic MUST see that as a business reality. As a result, Celtic must plan in terms of a strategy going forward and that strategy must include success on a European scale — in terms of football, business, branding, media and so on — as a matter of necessity. Similarly the club needs to change its stand on fan interaction ( this is happening slowly I think ) and has to be entrepreneurial in terms of the facilities and Celtic Park, the match day experience and the attraction of Celtic on non match day occasions. Celtic attendances have always oscillated and anyone who knows their history knows that. However, whilst it may sound unfaithful, dishonerable and even defeatist to say so, the powers that be at Celtic Park have to face two questions on a virtually daily basis at the moment. A. If Ronny D is the harbourer of a new revolution then what do the Board do to give him the maximum possible chance of success? Do they bust their buns to get him the right players, the right young talent to work with and so on? Perhaps that means taking steps and routes that they have not taken before? B. If Ronny proves not to be the answer, then who or what is plan B? Any Plan B cannot be makeshift, stopgap, or hit and hope. Right now the table and the cup stats tells us that the Ronny experiment is working, but it is the job of the managers in any company to look beyond today’s stats and seek out the trends and moves that could potentially bring those stats to a crashing halt at some time in the future. From the eye of this observer, the position at the top of the table is far from safe and the product on the park does not accurately project the desired image I would want for my football team. Fundamental alterations somewhere along the line are required — from top to bottom.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 14:46:32 +0000
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