There is usually a fair amount of hysteria after a Celtic defeat, sometimes after a draw, but the reaction since Saturday has largely been grounded in measured concern. Even in the darkest days of the 90s, when Oldco Rangers were at their peak, we could always lay a glove on them. It was bad.
The question is, what now? We won eight out of nine domestic games going into the weekend but the manner tightness of several of those wins did not inspire, were it not for late goals against St Johnstone and Dundee United, your worries would be significantly greater today.
Priority when you suffer a bad defeat is to stop things from getting worse. That means going to Aberdeen on Sunday and winning. It is not self-flagellation to say we need this game at Pittodrie. We need to go to one of the best teams in the league and get a win.
We endured many bad results in the 90s, but, if you are old enough, you will remember how there would usually be a backlash to a Celtic defeat. Whoever we played next saw the consequences of all that pain. We need to get in touch with that sentiment on Sunday. Use the pain.
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do you think we will win the league this season with the current manager and coaching staff?
current manager, yes
current coaching staff , it’s a no from me.
BHOYLO83 on 19TH OCTOBER 2020 4:29 PM
The moral of the story is don’t put your happiness in the hands of overpaid sportspeople who don’t give a sh*t about you or your families or about a football club who play in the backwater that is Scottish football…
Some do care, Lenny cares, Scott Brown cares (I assume James Forrest and Callum McGregor care) and I know for a fact Shane Duffy cares
Paul’s article a few weeks back on the importance of Scott Brown is becoming more and more relevant
BhoyLo83, well said. HH
HANKRAY on 19TH OCTOBER 2020 4:31 PM
Big Wavy…….,.,.,.,Funny how Shane’s passing stats in the recent Internationals were excellent.
—
No idea fella. The irish team are rank rotten and would put you off watching football so I’m seeing things there in drips and drabs. Are you suggesting Shane is in fact a great ball playing CH and that Brighton have got it wrong?
Its a well known phenomenon that players become world beaters the longer they are out of the team but we really missed Ryan Christie’s energy and ability on Saturday. The one thing that has irritated me about him this season – his eagerness to shoot from improbable positions – is possibly what was required, even to force a corner !!
The most frightening aspect of the whole thing was just how devoid of ideas we were.
TJ
RC on 19TH OCTOBER 2020 4:39 PM
do you think we will win the league this season with the current manager and coaching staff?
current manager, yes
current coaching staff , it’s a no from me.
Bring back Damian Duff RC, it makes sense.
Gordon Strachan’s son, what professional coaching experience, & successful
Managers has he come under, before he came to us? Probably None.
No bad appointment by PL, yet again.
I feel for him as he is wilting under the pressure of trying out those long passes to the wing backs he can’t muster.
play Julian behind him in a sweeper position , there your answer.
What about finding places for Soro and Turnbull in the midfield? And get young Dembele some game time…what have we got to lose? (I know, I know) I’d prefer to lose the 10 trying something different rather than losing it playing guys that aren’t functioning together
Thanks to all those who responded to my enquiry re Laxalt`s debut. Sounds quite promising.
Losing to THEM has made me realise even more just how much I want us to win the Ten.
I believe that the media`s support of Sevco leads to more positivity from their support re their team. Negative stories about our team have the opposite effect on our support about our team.
Getting rid of the anger felt at Saturday`s result is healthy. After the cleansing, though, I would like it if we could all get on with supporting Celtic again.
I know many will think that it is simply not possible for a Blog to influence performance….and they are probably correct but if many Blogs and many supporters were to exude positivity ( not fantasy) about our team, then I feel that with many thousands doing this, it somehow does have a positive influence.
So Bhoys, be angry, flat and worried but let`s keep any valid criticisms until the destiny of the title is actually known.
WEEBOBBYCOLLINS on 19TH OCTOBER 2020 4:46 PM
What about finding places for Soro and Turnbull in the midfield? And get young Dembele some game time…what have we got to lose? (I know, I know) I’d prefer to lose the 10 trying something different rather than losing it playing guys that aren’t functioning together
You are damn tooting, WeeBobbyCollins. HH.
We need the players who show hunger for success…
I don’t see where the next good performance is coming from. The team is disjointed; manager looks depressed; some players appear to have downed tools; we have a new and weak looking coaching team.
We look like a shambles tbh.
WBC, What have we got to lose? Points.
If we win our game in hand, we are a point behind.
Saturday was shocking..
However I am 100% certain we are away better than that.
I still believe we have the best squad in Scotland and we most definitely win the League.
At this moment every point is a prisoner, not the time for gambling.
If we have a shite few weeks and the League is effectively gone than experiment and look to the future but it’s far too early for that.
Put out your strongest team in their best positions, experiment if you are 3 up with 20 minutes left.
A lot to agree with on here this morning – and some that I personally cant accept.
My opinion has changed from being relaxed about how the club has been run to where I now advocate radical change.
Having said that, I don’t see Paul’s article as a Kumbaya particularly or even a proxy from PL or the board.
More of one fan’s call to arms that attempts to provide the necessary focus – the next game.
Galvanising the players towards improved performances & results must surely already be underway.
Uncle Jimmy is correct though – this is not just down to Saturday’s result or even performance.
As bad as both were, the issue has been rumbling around for months.
Almost unheard of in the modern football management roundabout Neil Lennon’s been obliged to do the job without his own trusted staff. Appointed as an emergency & temporary appointment by a board that mismanaged the potential of the previous successful manager, Neil accepted a condition that he work with the existing staff for continuity. After winning the Scottish Cup in May he accepted an offer of the permanent post BUT still with the same back room staff.
Damien Duff joined Rodger’s coaching staff in January 2019 but he’d hardly got through his first training session at Lennoxtown before Rodgers left. Damien stayed but left in April 2020 to be replaced by Gavin Strachan. Nicky Hammond turned his consultancy recruitment role into a permanent Head of Football Operations one. Those are the only changes to coaching staff at Celtic since he took over.
We’ve already had cause for concern this season – on more than one occasion.
Team selections, team shape, team tactics & worst of all team attitude, compounded for me by post match interviews that were often at odds with what had taken place on the pitch minutes before.
As Champions with more transfer funds available than all of our opponents we contrived to start a must win Champions League decided with no recognized striker on the field – and promptly lost the match. We fans moaned & critiqued things for a while – then moved on because we had another game coming up & after all “we still had the league to fight for”.
This type of reaction is what clubs do after a defeat – it’s not unique to Celtic – so it’s something that should be happening.
If it wasn’t then we should be really worried. We rationalize a defeat into something that we can bear & then quickly into something positive if at all possible. The “next game & learning from the defeat” are standard props for that.
Apart from the win against Hibs we have stuttered & spluttered through most games this season in an unconvincing manner. When poor performances are glossed over & defeats are rationalised to ignore the reality staring us in the face then the fallback coping mechanism of focusing on the next game becomes as much a distraction as an aid.
I cannot recall a time when so many players looked so unhappy, played so indifferently & lacked any appetite for a game such as Saturdays. Employees don’t lobby for an exit if they’re happy at their place of work but not trying for any athlete is fatal to their performance. We got what we deserved from Saturday – no points & increased pressure on the manager & players. To hear our manager state in his post match interview that that game “was always going to be a big ask” astonished me & should alarm fans. This was not Bayern Munich or Liverpool – but a team that recently drew with Livingston. A team that’s well coached & keeps it’s shape – yes – but eminently beatable.
We have been conditioned to rationalise failure almost to the point of acceptance & have kept lowering our expectations accordingly.
We used to have ambitions to reach the last 32 of the Champions league.
Then our ambition was to make the Champions League group stage.
Which soon became an ambition to reach the last 32 of the Europa League.
And that is now an ambition to reach the group stage of the Europa League.
The trend is very, very clear & is made worse when we send our team out to fail as we did at home against Ferencvaros.
We are a relatively big club with lively, noisy but fickle fans.
We have a great history but in my opinion a questionable future unless real change is implemented within the club. The mantra that Celtic managers are one defeat away from a crisis no longer holds for me because we’ve been lulled into accepting failure since we’re being told that success was beyond us in the first place.
It’s often dressed up as other stuff but look behind the trite soundbites & the acceptance of our place in the football food chain is always there. As it happens we are plummeting down that food chain because we are merely shrugging when we lose.
What in hell is that as an attitude on which to build success for any organisation?
What it means is that teams are no longer intimidated by Celtic because they know that currently we lack confidence in all the important areas & are becoming used to to defeat.
The decline of the team/club may look like it’s been halted if we win or draw against AC Milan & beat Aberdeen but this would only be a temporary reprieve in my opinion.
Sadly, some employees in very key positions at Celtic are not doing their job.
I disagree with the majority fan view that we need Celtic minded people at the helm.
We need clear thinking, logical, ambitious professional people who will not let wishful thinking & other sympathetic emotions cloud their judgement. The power of the club is best demonstrated when otherwise indifferent people become firm believers. For me, Celtic minded candidates require extra due diligence not less – before they’re recruited. Is the leaker of the team a Celtic Minded person?
As a club, Celtic recruit administratively from within which means that real change is not remotely in our future at present. I know that if you are in with the right people at Celtic, your job is safe – no matter what happens. I also know that the club pays very low wages for the work that people do. I think it’d astonish many of us if we knew how little some staff are paid. Both of these issues make for a corrupt & corruopting system – which is not to imply anything about any individual. But we all know how board & senior management complacency & a reluctance to embrace change nearly forced us into Administration in the recent past. It seems that old attitudes are still alive & well within the club. We have no vision at the top & no focus further down the hierarchy. When you settle for mediocrity you are planning to fail.
Yes!!! Win the next game & use whatever we can to get the team back on the rails but if we don’t adapt & implement real structural & attitudinal change we will repeating the same discussion points in a few weeks/months/years time.
If we could all ask one of our long gone Celtic heroes about this I wonder what they’d say.
YNWA
anyone have the same concerns re our greek goalie as me, too quiet currently I would have him a poorer keeper than CG & Bain.
Head still spinning, yet know our opinions count for absolutely nothing. The empty stadium has really shielded the players, mngmt and board from a tsunami of discontent. No way Lenny could have sat in the dugout muttering to himself if 60.000 fans had been screaming for change. The players would have been slaughtered for their ineptitude.
Instead, they hear nothing. Get showered, go home, feet up and wait for their next pay day. All they have to do to stay in their fantasyland is avoid the media.
Lenny tells them they are playing well.
No worries.
Wee Lenny was gutted, in his postmatch brief interview on Saturday, & rightly so,
like the rest of Us. Players & coaching staff, need to have a long hard look @
themselves, & step up to the plate/stand up & be counted. If they think that
going through the motions is acceptable, then they are seriously mistaken,
during this very important Season, for us associated with our beloved Club.
If they, & I mean the coaching staff & players, are not willing to pull their
weight, then they should be replaced simple as.
Success, is built with each & everyone individual associated with our Club,
all pulling together as one big unit, & that is a fact. HH
!!BADA BING!!
I agree Turnbull should be in the team, but I think he’ll struggle in the system we’re playing at present, por cierto
Nick Hamond was fired/sacked by Reading FC it’s not exactly a great thing to put down
on ones CV, now is it? No. Even his operations, should be closely monitored as well.
In other words, if he is no use, then taxi for NH. (HH)
RC – Craig Gordon is a good keeper but I think he left because he assumed FF was coming back.
SB is a good back up but, for me, looks too small for the modern game. Most keepers these days are well over 6ft to give a real physical presence.
Craig is 6ft 4 and Forster 6ft 7. Barkas is 6ft 5.
Post of the day by a country mile….
BOURNESOUPRECIPE on 19TH OCTOBER 2020 4:26 PM
Rainjurz have even got an offensive kit man.
………………………………………..
I think our biggest problem is that the support have lost faith in Lenny, reading a few blogs it’s clear that the majority want him gone, he is a dead man walking, I imagine if there was fans at the games he may well be gone already, going by Paul’s leader today it’s nothing to see here, carry on as if nothing has happened.
MM
“At lease we know where you stand — blinkers on living off past glories.
Last season after the 29th Dec shambles we had issues regarding the defeat but we also had the memories of the earlier league win and the good football we had played in the EuL.”
——————————————
I think we’re sharing the blinkers because you failed to read and answer the question posed.
I did not ask how you thought the team was doing on the 29th December 2019, which is the response you provided.
I did ask how you thought, around that time, the 2019/20 league would end. After all, if people in disagreemnet are blinkered and living in an alternate reality, you must have called the outcomeof the 2019/20 campaign correctly, No?
RC@ 5.03
I believe we could have got David Marshall for free.
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 19TH OCTOBER 2020 5:15 PM
Sevco have imploded in the last two seasons. Do you think it will happen again?
If it doesn’t, do you think Neil has what it takes to take more points from Sevco than they take from us in the remaining 3 games?
79CAPS on 19TH OCTOBER 2020 5:19 PM
we messed that up big time.
Setting Free the Bears
Your question was not put to me, so forgive me for answering. During the mid-season break last season I still thought we would win the league but expected it to be very close. Now I definitely think we’ll lose the league, even though it’s only October, without a change of manager.
Lenny has lost two key games so far this Season, Ferencvaros in an earlier CL Group Stage
Qualifier, & to Sevco @ CP, in an SPL fixture.
Now do we cut him some slack? yes/no is the question here.
Paul67 should have a poll with the questions
1) Should NFL be shown the ‘Exit Door’ Yes/No
2) & Which new Manager & Backroom Staff should we be looking
to replace NFL & Co with?
I think going by them’s reaction at the final whistle on sat. compared to last oct. that we are dealing with a different mentality this season and don’t see them to imploding this season , I expect this season to be decided on who takes most points from the 4 Glasgow derby games.
CORNELIUS
Great well presented post and nail on the head , imo
Por Cierto- the players look as confused with team formation as the fans are,pick a system and stick to it,and coach the team how to play it
CORNELIUS on 19TH OCTOBER 2020 5:01 PM
A lot to agree with on here this morning – and some that I personally cant accept.
My opinion has changed from being relaxed about how the club has been run to where I now advocate radical change.
——-
Great post.
Totally agree
HH jg
Barkas is 6’5’’?????
Really. I’ve seldom seen such a big guy look so wee between the sticks!
HH jg
Barkas is the least of our worries fellas.
TET @ 5.12
Neil Lennon cuts a lonely dash both behind closed doors and on the world wide web, I’m sure
We’ve gone beyond mere body language experts and are at the medical prognosis stage thanks to
Sky, Pass to Paradise, told you so’s, and the supporters that didn’t want him the first place brigade.
Lord knows what’ll get posted on the www should he lose a few more, Celtic picked him, and have backed him, avoiding knock backs from football messiahs that hadn’t done what he did before, and won the SPL.
You’re darn tooting its business as usual, we lost a game in a marathon with six players out, he’s got to make it work, changing horses mid stream is throwing in the ten in a row towel, to Sevco.
Corkcelt
‘Make changes when we’re 3 up with 20 mins to go….’
I love your optimism my friend!😉💚🍀💚
HH jg
Big Wavy
Barkas isn’t top of the list of worries.
But he’s on it.
I’ve yet to see him ‘save us’ a goal.
eg their first on Saturday.
Wasn’t his ‘fault’ – but compare to how many times FF scooped the ball away from the corner. Or used his giant frame to brick up his goal.
HH jg
Spirit of 67
CORNELIUS
Great well presented post and nail on the head , imo
Yeah Cornelius well said, however, are you sure Damain Duff was only on our
Coaching Staff, for just over four weeks, before BR & some of his Backroom
Staff, left our Club, because my Seat @ CP is just along from our Dugout, &
I’m positively sure I seen Damian Duff in said Dugout longer than four weeks.
& Our Club’s wage structure is pittance, not true, our Club’s wage bill is over
50 Million pounds a Season, that is not pittance, & also we are the most
expensive Club in Scotland to Support (Season Card/Badge/Pass Holder)
Which is a fact. HH.
CORNELIUS on 19TH OCTOBER 2020 5:01 PM
Wow! Quite a post, an excellent summary of where we are.
JAMESGANG / Big Wavy – I’ve said the same.
He’s not terrible, but he’s not stopping anything either.
HH
BGFC