What a lot of nonsense we’re been through since last week. My information was that we were interested in Roy Keane but no deal had been concluded. Martin O’Neill helpfully (cough) poured fuel on the fire by confirming he gave Roy permission to speak to Celtic, but despite several newspapers running the story that he was set to be appointed no later than today, the deal was never as close as reported.
Roy’s position on the short list was made time-critical by the fact that he was due to leave on tour with Ireland tomorrow, but talks continued in parallel with other targets.
The overwhelming reaction to yesterday’s news among the Celtic support was that we had a lucky escape. There was a Rangers fan who used to come onto the CQN comments section after Neil Lennon’s first season in charge and taunt us that Dermott Desmond was going to sack Neil and appoint Roy Keane. We didn’t take him seriously………
I’ve never been in the business of rubbishing Celtic players or managers before they arrive (although I’ve never backed a managerial appointment since starting CQN) but Keane represented a huge and unacceptable risk to Celtic. We have an excellent football infrastructure and development strategy, with good coaches at all levels. We need a technically gifted tactician, capable of dovetailing with this strategy. Whatever Keane is, there is little evidence that he is a tactical genius, or that he’s likely to dovetail with anyone else’s strategy. The potential disruption his unique brand of focus would bring could be considerable.
Although you can expect a daily drip of ‘news’, I don’t expect any actual news in the short-term.
Visit the CQN Bookstore to get Tommy Gemmell to sign your personal copy of his tome, All the Best.
Shout out to Frank O’Hagan, who supported the CQN Charity Golf Day with his music three years ago. He’s playing Glasgow Uni Union on Friday night, get along if you can.
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ItaliaBhoy
15:03 on
3 June, 2014
I don’t find your post very reassuring Paul… Keane ticks none of the boxes for us yet clearly we were interested enough to open talks with him.
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IB
I agree to some extent but on the other hand when a guy of RK’s profile and connections to the club’s main shareholder throws his hat in the ring it’s inconceivable the club wouldn’t do him the courtesy of , as Jim Kerr once memorably put it , “putting the kettle on”.
That’s a mile away from being close to appointing him.
PL’s comments last week as good as said so.
Sherlock Holme’s smarter brother
ItaliaBhoy
I reckon DD gave RK the nod and told him he would sort it out quickly
The ‘bored’ and PL thought it would be a disaster so they cut him off at the pass by announcing that they were talking to several candidates.
I reckon DD and PL’s relationship has suffered here because generally they agree or don’t disagree too badly.
DD couldn’t push it through without causing a huge rammy and RK got the message and backed away.
In my opinion …..
Thanks for the answers, I respectfully disagree. It matters not a jot to me that the players are on holiday. We need a manager assistants in, settled and work done with incoming players all in the next 6 weeks. Not a long time.
charliemac,
that’s more or less what i heard…
So we need someone good at ‘dovetailing’, I’m beggered if I know wit joinery has got to do wi it.
the long wait…
Possibly, though I hear PL is not amused. (I trust my source but of course he could be talking nonsense!)
leftclicktic We are all Steve Clarke(?)
Thanks for that! Great help!
Colin Mcadam
Pierce O’Leary
Dannii Minogue
I distinctly heard RK in an interview re Celtic that he could keep ROI job part time. Which means he would also be a part time Celtic Manager
No Way
Jordi Cruyff
Ive a good idea, why dont all these football ‘experts’ that write articles in the dailys apply for the job, surely they’re bursting to show us all how it should be done properly. I mean its easy isnt it?
Dovetailing ,eh?
Sounds like a job for ol’ John Lambie.
bournesouprecipe
My dad worked on the rigs and onshore at Nigg Bay during the 80’s. He lost a fortune to Dons fans during that time when they beat Celtic regularly. There was one night Celtic lost a match on penalties and poor Pierce missed the decisive kick.
He went to work the night shift at Nigg Bay and was surprised nobody mentioned the match and went to his work where he was welding a piece of metal. Written on the metal in chalk was the words.
One two three O’Leary, Celtic in the final nearly!
He had to hand it to the Sheep for their banter.
LB
Claude Anelka
Joel Cantona
If Lawwell did not want Roy Keane then I would say he done a good job there. Not sure many fans thought Roy would be a good fit for Celtic.
LB
bournesouprecipe
15:14 on
3 June, 2014
Sherlock Holme’s smarter brother
Mycroft……sad person that I am – I own every ACD book on Holmes (with and without Watson).
Good day to you sir.
Ernie
DD has idiot phases like everybody else
Appointing Barnes..idiot
Appointing MON..very astute
Appointing WGS…as above
Appointing TM..idiot
Appointing. Lenny …gamble but it worked
RK …back to idiot
LiviBhoy
I had high hopes for Pierce at one time, and remember that Easter Rd shoot out.
Hamilton Tim
A way of engaging with supporter at large was under discussion long before the Open Meetings at London Rd via a membership scheme.
The Supporters Forum form was used by other clubs so it was worth trying out. The timing was coincidental. The Open Forum was a bit of a surprise to me but I cannot speak for Celtic.
One of the aims of the SF from way back was to give supporters on blogs who are not able to have a say via live meeting attendance that opportunity.
Given CQN has many in that category then having someone there to support their points made sense. Paul was there and myself since I’d pulled the input together and had an idea of the detail.
I understand that at the last Open Meeting the Supporters Forum came under attack for not publishing minutes and bloggers being amongst the invited. I got a bit of personal abuse myself on Twitter from a guy making unfounded and ill researched comments.
I think you made the point about minutes ( but properly) on CQN to which I replied.
The decision taken at the Supporters Forum regarding minutes was not to make them public as in “he said/ she said” to encourage free debate but to publish Action Points, which was done.
I understand but am open to correction that the Open Meeting itself came to a similar arrangement for the same reasons.
Representation of views has always been a problem, but in a changing world there is no need to organise on a historical basis of only officially recognised groups.
Given that most of those groups were at the last Supporters Forum was it just bloggers having a say or non representational groups that was the problem and what could be done to restore trust for those who complained? Banning bloggers or bringing it all together?
Billy the Fish, maybe?
Wouldn’t cost the earth either.
Elementary my dear Finbar75
One last point about the Supporters Forum.
Publishing Action Points to be followed up at next meeting means issues do not get lost after initial interest wanes.
One if my biggest complaints from experience.
Billy the Fish, maybe?
Wouldn’t cost the earth either.
-only if it was Billy the Fish from sustainable sources
Charliemac
Italiabhoy
Had it been me and speaking purely personally from my understanding of Celtic’s football operations model it would have been “RK or Me” Dermott
Frank McGarvey’s contribution to the following item in today’s Herald makes interesting reading.
He must win the title by a healthy points margin, look to add a cup or two, and do all he can to guide the team into the group stage of the Champions League.
He must also be accepting that his best players will be sold most years and replaced at a fraction of the cost. It is not the exact job description that will be stuck under the nose of whomever ends up succeeding Neil Lennon but it will not be far off it.
Frank McGarvey believes that it is time to tweak the model. McGarvey speaks as a former Celtic player of some repute – 113 goals bagged over five years, two league titles, two Scottish Cups and one League Cup – but also offers the viewpoint of the ordinary fan. The 58 year-old’s cv also includes spells with St Mirren, 10 months at Liverpool, and stints with Queen of the South and Clyde towards the end of his playing days, but he is unashamedly a Celtic man.
When he talks about punters putting in the hours at work to buy season tickets to watch the team, he is almost certainly speaking from personal experience.
McGarvey blames a sense of disenchantment among a section of the Celtic support on two things. One is a lack of genuine competition in the SPFL Premiership, something the club can do nothing about.
The other is the inevitable departure most years of the best players in the squad, usually to clubs in England. This, McGarvey feels, is disheartening for the fans and unhelpful for the manager.
“It annoyed me last year that the team had just come off a season where they had got into the last 16 of the Champions League and made £12m for Victor Wanyama and they still sold Gary Hooper, their top goalscorer,” he said.
“They’ve got to have a balance. They can’t keep asking the Celtic supporters to buy season tickets when they’re selling their best players every year. That’s not right.
“The board and Dermot Desmond [Celtic’s major shareholder] have said they won’t throw money at [improving the team] – the Celtic fans aren’t asking them to throw money at it. They just want them to stop letting the best ones go every summer. They’re getting into the Champions League every season.
“Surely that’s enough money to pay the wages and all the bills for the year? But they seem to be more interested in money rather than keeping the Celtic supporters happy. That upsets me. They don’t have to break the bank. But last year they bought [Teemu] Pukki and [Amido] Balde for around the £2m to £3m mark and that’s cost them money.
“So there’s got to be a balance. You get the Champions League money in and maybe sell a player if you’re in trouble. But at the moment Celtic aren’t even making an effort to try to get a team in the Champions League. Any player that’s worth any kind of money they just sell.
“The fans are out working to pay for tickets and to take their kids to the games and they want to be entertained. That’s the bottom line. If they don’t get entertained, which they’ve not been recently, then why should they keep coming back?
“Celtic have done well but it’s been nothing games. Who wants to watch nothing games?”
It was only last month that Lennon chose to step down but McGarvey felt it was a decision a year in the making. “They sold Hooper last year and that was the beginning of the end,” he added.
“I was sickened by that as well. Their top scorer and they let him go for £5m, then buy in two guys for a total of £5m who can’t score goals to replace him. That’s not being clever.
“Neil helped [chief executive] Peter Lawwell become a good accountant as he was bringing in a lot of money. But Peter Lawwell wasn’t making Neil Lennon a good manager. He kept selling all his best players. You can’t do that, there has to be a balance.”
Frank McGarvey was helping promote Saturday’s match between a team of Old Firm legends and the Royal Regiment of Scotland to raise money for Erskine, the veterans’ care charity – tickets are available fromwww.zeroalphafoundation.org/events.html
inShare
Italiabhoy,
Possibly so.
Wonder if he got his way.
Much as he’s an employee I’d suspect he’s been in situ long enough to have some degree of veto.
I dont really get all this manager and box office talk.
I have never went to a game yet because of who was the manager. It had always been about the team. And I know the manager picks the team.
We would flock in our thousands to see Henke the player.
But Henke the manager. I aint too sure.
Of course every rule has an exception. Clough Pep Jose. People who have a successful history. Pity is we arent in the market for one of those.
I am still of the opinion that Keane was used to get people to renew season tickets in the last day or two before renewals had to take place. Why else would Martin O’Neill reveal that Celtic we’re talking to Keane. O’Neill is a very intelligent and discreet person and for him to let slip about the talks was deliberate in my opinion. This worked for all parties. We sold a few more tickets, Keane was immediately all over the news headlines and suddenly he has another job offer from Aston villa, one which suits him perfectly because he can continue his job for Ireland. I would like to see Clarke get the job now but I would love to see us go for Eddie Howe from Bournemouth. He is a really talented and hungry young manager. He’s in his second spell there having come back from burnley for personal reasons so it may be that he wants to stay in the south of England.
One of the immediate problems with promoting the “smokescreen” narrative is that whoever does eventually arrive in the managerial hot seat will be seen by many as a reluctant candidate, one who had to be “smoked out”. That does not provide the kind of clean slate that most managers would like to begin their tenure with.
I don’t know who we expect to be beating our door down to be manager at Celtic if our last short leet attracted only Mowbray, Coyle, McGhee and Martinez (unfancied at the time). Some believe that if we showed more ambition (i.e. paid higher wages) we would get more stellar candidates. And then there would be the same expectation to splash cash on bigger named players to provide a team more befitting of our star manager. On this journey, we ditch our current prudent strategy which fits our setting for one where we pretend to be rich by paying more than we can afford. Frankly, I am amazed that either Keane or Moyes are in the frame (or were).
Of course, people will say I only want us to spend a little bit more, but all teams need a structured squad. You cannot conduct a season long campaign with a team of 11 to 14 star players. You need many more to cover injury and suspension and you cannot pay them all big bucks or just “give them what they want, Celtic FFS!”. And you can’t restrict the star players to just the European arena as there needs to be regular playing time to maintain form so a two-team strategy has severe problems too.
I cannot call it ambition when we ask others to fund our wishes for Celtic to be better. It is a desire to be “sugar-daddied” and I think the more accurate term would not fit well with the language policy on here.
The Irish radio link that KevJ provided suggests that our “stay alive and try to get out of this restrictive environment” strategy remains intact.
Pete Best
Malone Bhoy.
MALONE BHOY…
Lennon started off as a rookie with no real experience. He could have been anything but we took the gamble, hence it worked out good. I think Henke has had no quality where he has been. With him having Celtic blood, I personally think he would raise what little experience he’s got, just like Lennon and use his presence and personality to keep us really focused.
YNWA.
.
Auldheid
If so I hope the 2 men are big enough to put it behind them and come up with a name that they both agree with
Quick visit.
Frank is a bitter man. I feel for him. He certainly has a thirst for putting the boot into the good ship Celtic.
Best that he sticks to the Old Firm and leaves the rest of us to get on with supporting Celtic.
Offwki.
Whoever is appointed I can’t help but feel that we need to do much better in terms of succession planning. To fit the strategy we should be concentrating on identifying the up and coming young continental coaches and paying much more attention to the performance of unfancied sides in the Europa League etc.We could do worse than speaking to such as Roberto Martinez etc simply to ask who impresses him as a coach.As things stand I’m not sure we have any succession strategy beyond who Dermot fancies.