This time last year the league was in the bag, as it is today, but we had Champions League football to look forward to in the coming days, and would ultimately go on to win the Scottish Cup. The Champions League is always going to be a hard place to measure progress for a club seeded in pot 4, last season it was hard enough to Benfica, a pot 2 team who were eliminated by Celtic but still progressed to the Europa League final.
Domestic cup performances for Celtic is a more accessible measuring tool. After home defeats to Morton (good grief) and now Aberdeen we may well ask, what went wrong?
It was evident from early in the second half that whatever match plan we had was not effective, and despite the introduction of fresh faces, the performance didn’t improve. Aberdeen defended outside their box very effectively, making it difficult for Celtic to play the kind of passes which Samaras released Stokes with to score early in the game. Forrest found red shirts blocking his path whenever he got going. Commons had a day when nothing sparked. Possession was cheaply conceded throughout as Celtic continued to ask the same question of the Aberdeen defence.
While we are playing in in impoverished Scottish football Aberdeen represent the strongest possible opponents. They are second in the league and were the last team to score against us on merit. Yesterday wasn’t a fluke result, it was deserved and marked the progress of Derek McInnes’ team.
So where does this leave us? Celtic remain imperious in the Premiership, the fact that they’ve not tasted defeat against a weaker team there, or conceded in 11 games, is historically impressive, but against the best of the rest, there are question marks, as there will be for Champions League qualifiers.
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In the aftermath of a bad defeat, our blog is full of anger and sadness, reflecting the disappointment of an opportunity missed to win another trophy. I feel, however, this time the mood is much worse.
Talk of replacing NFL from a few of us is to be expected, but I feel the criticism is way OTT, and to suggest Roy Keane as his replacement is plainly ridiculous.
The biggest concern is the dramatic fall in attendances. I would have expected an almost full house for an attractive cup tie such as Saturday’s. The board’s behaviour towards the GB and its attitude to the OB Act and FOcUS have sickened many fans. The general economic situation is also a major factor.
The board can do nothing regards the latter issue but it is IMPERATIVE that they engage with the support to tackle the other issues. The disconnect between the board and the majority of fans is a big worry. I would suggest that if steps are not taken by the board to address this, and attendances continue to slide, the directors could be held to be negligent in their duties to protect shareholders’ interests.
It seems likely that CP will be like a morgue for the rest of this season. The nightmare scenario for me would be failure to reach the CL group stage and the better players sold off to balance the books. What would that do to ST sales?
I urge the board now to engage with fans, tell the politicians to GTF with their criminalisation of our support, clamp down on the thuggish stewards at CP and not allow the MSM to set our agenda.
It’s healthy to debate these issues on a forum such as ours but the personal attacks on those with whom we don’t agree and figures like PL are counter productive and don’t take us forward. Eg It’s all very well to say, “Sack the board!” Who replaces them?
We need to build a measure of trust between fans’ groups and the board. I recognise that some matters must be kept private but there should be more transparency on others. If the board did actively promote the OB Act, whilst telling us they didn’t, WTF is that about?
Now is the time to take stock, get ourselves together and move forward as one.
We need freshening up , have done for a while
Let’s not kid ourselves, we’re nothing special , better than what’s out there.
Dare I say it , the Sevco would give us a fright , on our day we play well , but seem to be very flat in going about our game, except Kris Commons , and only him ! .
Kris Commons has been our top man this season no doubt , but we can’t rely on him each game . Maybe it is time for NL to go ? Samaras and a few of the deadwood players we’ve drafted in must be moved on .Tactics are poor a lot of the time , remedy ?….
Malky Mackay and £10 m . Play a few of our youths from now until end of season to blood them , get Tony Watt back pronto and make him our main striker .See how we progress or regress , then make signings from there . We must make the CL and be ready for the return of the Huns .