Politics is very much at play in football these days. With Boris Johnson indicating yesterday that he expects up to 10,000 fans inside football stadiums from 17 May, you can expect his Holyrood shadow to propose a similar plan, perhaps a week later/earlier, as has been her way for 11 months.
If the 17 May date feels arbitrary, it is not. Euro 20201 fixtures get underway a month later, offering populist governments a way to compare how far along the recovery road their surviving citizens are. Governments in London and Edinburgh will permit domestic fans to attend games just in time for their flag waving opportunities.
There will be fans at Wembley and Hampden, irrespective of what’s going on in public health, you can bet their lives on it.
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Here’s a prediction that will offend the blindly loyal… Celtic will make a roaring tit of the ‘rebuild’ and languish behind the huns for years to come.
Lawwell is toxic and the culture he has inculcated will take time to shift. Meantime, the bowling club set we call a Board make the Kellys & Whites look positively alive to future possibilities by comparison.
Oh and for those of the credulous persuasion that will be offended by my supposed negativity (alternatively known as realism), look back to the blog the night of Ferencvaros and tell me who’s been proven more prescient.
typin
Here’s a prediction that will offend the overly pessimistic… Celtic will make a roaring success of the ‘rebuild’ and will be on top of the huns for years to come.
Lawwell is leaving, he was the CEO not the PLC and the culture of success for 11 of the last 12 seasons will endure. Meantime, the business billionaire owners who make the Kellys & Whites look exactly what they were, a near bankrupted corner shop.
Oh and for those of the credulous persuasion that will be offended by my supposed negativity (alternatively known as realism), look back to the blog the night of Ferencvaros and tell me who’s been proven more prescient.
The board’s next move is crucial. Appoint a “Jack Ross” type or Keep the present management team and i fear we are looking at what PETERLATCHFORDSBELLY posted earlier. Go for the right man, like Rodgers or O’Neill and Saint Stivs will be nearer the mark.
cut and paste disaster, tactically inept, happens even to the legends -)))
Oh and for those of the credulous persuasion that will be offended by my supposed positivity (alternatively known as realism), look back to the blog the night of Lazio when no one was screaming for Neil Lennon to go then.
Markieboy,
as much as Stevie Clarke did a turn at Kilmarnock, him, and Jack Ross the year before as “Managers of the Year” was for me the good old ANYONE BUT CELTIC voting systems.
I would suggest that Brendan at Liverpool and Martin (2 league cups at Leicester) were far higher performers in their relevant times and proper top grade managers.
Celtic Mac
“̶W̶e̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶i̶x̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶b̶o̶t̶h̶.̶ ̶W̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶p̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶u̶n̶.̶ ̶W̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶h̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶”̶
We do neither.
EXCATHEDRA44 on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 3:15 PM
that was an excellent post.
Did anyone at the end of last season, really think, that Rangers team, could be unbeaten after 30 games, lost none, drew 4, and lost only 7 goals ? seriously anyone ?
A threat maybe, but the runaway nature and the decisions in favour are utterly suspicious.
I only have one real target left for the team, we need to beat them once, they cannot be allowed to match the Invincibles points total, or goal total, i am certain they are going have a new record for goals conceded.
Perfect shit storm on our side, perfect collusion cover up, hand shakes and blind eyes for them.
SAINT STIVS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 6:34 PM
Here’s a prediction that will offend the overly pessimistic… Celtic will make a roaring success of the ‘rebuild’ and will be on top of the huns for years to come.
_____________________________________________________________
Excellent prediction, and why not, it has as much chance of succeeding as any other prediction👍
Nobody knows whats going to happen, its just as easy to speculate that things will go well as opposed to the alternative.
SAINT STIVS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 6:40 PM
Was wondering what the hell you were on about 😂😂😂
ROCK TREE BHOY on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 7:00 PM
SAINT STIVS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 6:34 PM
We still have the structural and business operations advantages, we just misued the assetts this year.
We kept players that wanted to go (but imagine we had let EO leave, what an outcry there would have been)
We let players go we shouldnt have, Craig Gordon for me was the biggest mistake.
We filled positions everybody wanted filled, gk, lb, ch, cf, mf, (but only 1 has improved the team DT).
Form players got covid.
Other players got injured.
Last time it was this bad was 78, not even the 90s.
It is idiotic to think the owners are ok with it all, and happy that a Rangers continue, I bet they are hurting, they just dont get to express it the way we can.
oh ps, I never understood letting Eric go, he is better than all the centre halfs we have now, and dont get me started on sinky and PC Lustig.
“ERNIE LYNCH on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 5:29 PM”
Thanks for the reply and for the `uncertainty` link.
SAINT STIVS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 6:34 PM
‘ Meantime, the business billionaire owners who make the Kellys & Whites look exactly what they were, a near bankrupted corner shop.’
###
That era, when the Club was owned and controlled by Celtic fans, gave us the European Cup.
This era, in which the Club is owned and controlled by a billionaire tax exile non Celtic fan, has given us disco lights.
PRESTONPANS BHOYS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 7:03 PM
SAINT STIVS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 6:40 PM
Was wondering what the hell you were on about 😂
—–
Haverin, a great old scottish word.
Prestonpans popped up in one of those archive twitter feeds I have, I meant to capture it and forgot where it was , a cracker picture as well.
Kieran Devlin, in that Athletic article, made a few telling points about Neil Lennon’s defence of Celtic performances failing to match up to fans expectations for a more honest level of self scrutiny.
However when he started talking about the New Modern football manager and the dependence on analytics, and when he talked of the necessity for sackings, he provided only the anecdotal arguments that suited his pre-existing view and failed the basic journalistic task of addressing contradictory data and examples and acounting for them.
On the point of view of Managers with a tendency to elevate analytics over man management, he chooses names who have self publicised their use of analytical information- Jack Ross and Brendan Rodgers have stated their reliance on it (Iwas unaware that Jim goodwin had but I’ll take Kieran Devlin at his word for that) and Neil has stated that he downplays that sort of thing, which in Celtic hyper-critical world gets translated into _ “He doesn’t do tactics” or “He doesn’t see tactics and data and Sports Science as worthwhile or important”.
Yet, neither Kieran Devlin or the rest of us have seen these managers day and daily in action, to know what their balance is between pure data science and rousing speeches. I have a strong suspicion, equally based on no close observation, that you would be hard pressed to discern this bias for analytics or the coaching teams position on the line between man management and data science if you watched a training session or a coaching talk being given by all the clubs in the SPFL or in the EPL. I am fairly sure that the players at Leeds get a fairly good grounding in team tactics and are not just provided with the Latin bravado of Bielsa speeches to equip them for the challenges ahead. I am equally sure that the players at Leicester are not just given diagrams and restricted movement patterns on the field and that they get more than the occasional pep talk and man management that other coaches provide.
Sure a couple of players who worked under Neil, have said that he, personally is more of a man manager. Not one of them said he does not do tactics or sports science and not one of them said he decries that side of things. Most importantly, not one of them said that the club does not do sports science or tactics. There is, after all more of a coaching team at Celtic than Neil Lennon. Equally there is more to Leicester’s coaching than Brendan and there are other coaches at Leeds behind Marcelo Bielsa.
We judge our belief in these things by what we see on the field during matches. If we see regular late goals conceded by Celtic, we deduce, inaccurately, that our fitnes levels are failing. The deduction is inaccurate because it ignores the inconvenient fact that we score far more late goals than we concede- how does a team lacking in fitness do that? We see our teams regularly losing goals from corners and set pieces and we assume that defending these situations is not practised regularly at training. We take our views, based on a lack of infornation on what goes on at Lennoxtown, but confidently assert that we can discern that from watching matches.
Certainly, it is accurate to assert that we do not effectively defend set pieces during matches but that is not the accusation that gets made, instead we get told that we are not working on them at all. Again, I have no inside info on Lennoxtown, but I am willing to place a large bet, by my standards, on stating that this team will be working on this aspect on a regular basis, and that analytic information on where how and why these goals are conceded is developed and scrutinised. Anybody asserting that they do not do this could be easily disabused by watching a typical week’s training or talking to an honest unembittered pro at CP. However, it is not a great idea that such unthinking judges should get the access to training sessions given they may not understand what they are seeing.
On Kieran’s other point on the performance benefits of sacking managers, his intellectual dishonesty is more exposed. He cites examples of successful managers who were sacked at the first sign of faltering and replaced by managers who did bettter IMMEDIATELY afterwards. He fails to point out that these short term examples often get blown out of the water if you follow up the successor’s longer term record and find that it is less successful than the guy who got sacked. Or even acknowledge that the guy who got sacked went on to do better at clubs elsewhere. Above all, he fails to inform that the theory of “dead cat bounce” gains from sacking managers has been thoroughly disproved. He fails to acknowledge that diddy clubs the world over sack 2 or 3 managers each seasom without any discernible effect on their position in the football food chain. It is unsurprising to find out that it is in fact those clubs who are more loyal to managers and who allow them more than a season to shape and build a club to their vision, that enjoy longer term success.
Football is a uniquely stupid industry in the short term managerial contracts it provides and the upheaval it expects itself to deal with. Nowhere else, certainly not in Kieran’s field of journalism, nor in more cut-throat pockets of industry is there managerial turnover with the frequency that exists in football. No industry re-employs sacked people with the frequency that football does.
It is hard to get accurate stats for clubs willingness to stick or twist with managers. An article I read in 2015 suggested that West Ham was the most reluctant club to sack managers but that was based on them having had, up to then, 17 managers in their history. But the 2 or 3 managers per season stat is a modern phenomenon, unknown to football up to the 70’s or thereabouts. Celtic had 3 managers between 1897 and 1965, a period of 68 years. In the subsequent 55 years we have had 15 different managers, and that excludes caretakers. Since that 2015 article West Ham have had 4 more managers, still quite stable compared with other clubs, but that includes employing Davie Moyes for season 2017/18 , sacking him and bringing him back in 2019 to enjoy great success.
Now, I am not trying to say that we wil re-employ NFL to great effect but Kieran Devlin has to address the point- were West ham write to sack Davie Moyes in 2018, in favour of the Fabio Fabulosi myth of Pellegrini, only to re-employ him again a year later? And what of the fans views? How many of them were sure that DM was a dud and that their Board were mad to re-employ him. I’m betting it was more than a minority.
Sam Allardyce, self described as a keen proponent of Sports Science and technology, has been employed at 8 different EPL clubs (Bolton, Newcastle, Blackburn, West Ham, Sunderland, Crystal Palace, Everton, and West Brom) His win rates with these clubs range from 29% with Sunderland to a high of 41% with Bolton – his first EPL club (His current rate with West Brom is only 7.7% but that is over a 2 month period only since December 2020 so I exclude that). His teams highest EPL positions were 5th, 11th, 10th, 10th, 17th, 14th, and 8th. Their positions when he left were 5th, 11th, 13th, 12th, 17th, 14th and 8th.
So how would you know if he’s a good manager, his best and worst positions with clubs are remarkably similar. He is credited at being good at avoiding relegation but West Brom will probably blow a hole in that theory this year. Even, if they do, will that deter other desperate clubs from asking him to get them out of trouble again. Having had a lengthy career, it would be hard to argue that he’s a capable manager but is he a good one?
Easier to judge with examples like Ferguson and his effect on both Aberdeen and Man Utd. Easy to give accolades to Mourinho as he won the CL with Porto and Inter. His win records across 7 clubs including Porto ranges from a low of 58% with Man U up to 72% with Real. Yet he is ONLY achieving 51% win rate with Spurs and he was sacked at Man U, mutually consented at Chelsea(twice) and Real and “released” by Inter.
It gets harder to judge with characters like Wenger who were offered continuity and patience by a club. He was obviously able to create attractive teams and he won 3 league titles in his first 8 years of a 22 year reign, 7 FA cups- (3 of them in his last four years) and 7 charity shields. Most Arsenal fans will argue that the club persisted too long and that they would have won a title more recently than 2004 but that is all guesswork- nobody really knows if it would have been better or worse.
These are the kinds of judgements Kieran Devlin does not want to address.
ERNIE LYNCH on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 7:11 PM
SAINT STIVS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 6:34 PM
‘ Meantime, the business billionaire owners who make the Kellys & Whites look exactly what they were, a near bankrupted corner shop.’
###
That era, when the Club was owned and controlled by Celtic fans, gave us the European Cup.
This era, in which the Club is owned and controlled by a billionaire tax exile non Celtic fan, has given us disco lights.
———————————–
That is a very unfair comparison Ernie, how could the Kellys and Whites have got us disco lights, they would have looked like search lights to the lufftwaffe bombers.
Collusion CSC
SAINT STIVS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 4:28 PM
What had Rodgers won before he came? What had Neil Lennon won before he was appointed the first time? Strachan?
One of Europe’s most sought-after managers, Pochettino has never “won” anything.
What exactly do they need to have won before Celtic can look at them as someone who can take us forward?
Gerrard was a rookie and to this day hasn’t won anything (yet) but certainly has the tactical number of multi-title winning Neil Lennon.
Champions League-winning managers or title-winning managers at the big five leagues aren’t coming to Scotland any time soon.
So for most of our history we have sung about the ould country and its brave volunteers who fought and died for Ireland’s independence but now that most of us have lived in Scotland for 2,3 and 4 generations some on this site don’t believe that our country should be independent from the Westminster Tory shysters and Labour sell out characters who nearly all end up in the House of Lords. “Oh we will be governed by people who hate Celtic , Catholics etc ” they say. This is exactly the argument put forward by the Unionists of Ireland at the start of the 20th century only this time it was Rome rule they were frightened of. I have more faith in the people of Scotland and I am confident that and Independent Scotland will eventually become a modern European state.
Independence is not all about the SNP or Celtic,Rangers the Orange Order etc it is much bigger than that.
The Celtic boards inaction at the moment must surely be either they don’t have a clue what to do or there is a plan that they cannot implement right now, lets hope it’s the latter. For my part I think they might be prepared to wait for Steve Clarke, who’s appointment I would welcome but would worry about the planning for the start of next season. The sooner something is announced the better.
MMCCARTNEY on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 7:28 PM
It’s been said that we’re looking to appoint a sporting director. Surely any managerial appointment will have to wait until after then if that’s the road we’re going down…
SAINT STIVS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 6:34 PM
Here’s a prediction that will offend the overly pessimistic… Celtic will make a roaring success of the ‘rebuild’ and will be on top of the huns for years to come.
——–
I am a believer that things aren’t as bad as they are made out to be and yes we will come roaring back in a year or two. It would also be remiss not to mention the clusterf**k that will unfold the minute Gerrard opts to return south of the border.
MMCCARTNEY on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 7:28 PM
Have you seen the shenanigans in Holyrood recently. ? The stench of cover up and sleeze is rampant and an affront to Scottish democracy.
Yes the Scottish people need freedom, freedom from dictatorship by stealth.
They are no friends of Celtic.
SAINT STIVS
You were right the first time about the Ferencvaros game.
lol
Our last 4 PERMANENT manager appointments have won the league at the first attempt.
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 7:13 PM
that was an excellent read.
Personally I am actually looking forward to next season with anticipation and excitement.
A new CEO. Hopefully a director of football , with a new head coach with his own coaching team.
The wantaways gone and new players.
And the best bit, sitting in my seat watching the hoops
anyone but celtic – but it will definately be nobody but Stevie G this year.
2006–07 Gordon Strachan Celtic Also won the SFWA award [3]
2007–08 Billy Reid Hamilton Academical
2008–09 Gordon Strachan Celtic
2009–10 Walter Smith Rangers Also won the SFWA award [4]
2010–11 John McGlynn Raith Rovers [5]
2011–12 Derek Adams Ross County [6]
2012–13 Allan Johnston Queen of the South [7]
2013–14 Derek McInnes Aberdeen Also won the SFWA award [8][9]
2014–15 John Hughes Inverness Caledonian Thistle Also won the SFWA award [10][11]
2015–16 Mark Warburton Rangers [12]
2016–17 Brendan Rodgers Celtic Also won the SFWA award [13]
2017–18 Jack Ross St Mirren [14][15]
2018–19 Steve Clarke Kilmarnock [16]
2019–20 N/A N/A
ST TAMS on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 7:55 PM
best post in months st t – really cheered me up. HWG1IAR
Tiger Woods injured in a car crash. Multiple injuries to his legs.
MMCCARTNEY on 23RD FEBRUARY 2021 7:28 PM
You’d think that having sung all those songs for so long it might have dawned on you that Ireland’s position within the UK was very different from that of Scotland’s.
Maybe I’m giving you too much credit.
I see Chelsea are getting the same luck as the Hun in Europe.Atletico half a team out.
Saying Atletico spent 180 million on Felix,and Lemarr,and they have not really done much.
OOO,FT.
St Stivs 19;00 approx.
Good point regarding what we need to do in the final stages of this League,and that is go out and beat them.
Had last year finished conventionally and ran its course, I believe Gerrard would have been binned.
For what it’s worth prior to any guard of honour discussion,Celtic should reiterate this is the 1st not the 55th title,and has been achieved with a backdrop of unprecedented officiating statistics,and extensive and targeted Govt. involvement.
Time to get tough,who exactly are we trying to placate? Those who have proven this Season they hate us with a passion.
Last throw Peter,over the ball.
Remember many years ago Big Gordon McQueen on a short TV clip complaining that punters were coming up to him saying they were better than him , he was hopeless etcetc
Sure it was outside main stand at the Holy Ground where Big Gordon them got a ball thrown at him and juggled it around brilliantly …. game for a laugh the big fella
Bayern absolutely destroying Lazio.Sane running riot.What a team.
Stevie Clark could not have been any more clear,when he said he wanted nothing g to do with the religious aspect prevalent in Glasgow.
When Clarkey was talking about the ” Religous ” thing…..*cough*……i think….he’d been rope-a-doped by the meeja……….
………what he meant was the hun bigotry and rabid personal abuse that he would be subjected to………………………if presumably he took the “O&& F&&” Celtic job……………..
The SFA meeja types had him conveniently kippered. Steves no’ daft but I also doubt he’d have the stomach to take on hundom at his stage of life.
i could be wrong of course……..
HHH.
” SFA Spokesman Broadfoot Darryl…..”
Oh aye.