And release! Ronny Deila had to go and a few minutes ago, Celtic confirmed that he will leave at the end of the season. I’ve bitten my tongue on this online for months, as I once before suggested we sack a manager here (April 2008) and very quickly regretted it, but as anyone I’ve spoken to privately will tell you, it’s been clear we were on the wrong track since our Champions League exit in August.
The news broke in Norway that he was leaving a few days ago, which forced everyone’s hands to make an announcement now, but I’m glad he’s going to be with us to see the league title won. It doesn’t matter who the competition is, winning the league means lots to many of us, and we’re about to part company with only the second manager in our history not to lose a league title.
For that, he will always be welcome. It would have been absurd to sack a manager two games away from winning the league.
Ronny arrived with a plan for playing football which was cruelly exposed as inadequate in Warsaw, as Legia picked us off. That was acceptable, but the plan never changed. Neither did the results in Europe. We went down to Maribor and Malmo in the same manner.
I’d never heard of Ronny before his appointment but I backed the decision at the time, as he fitted the profile of manager I wanted: not a reject from England, someone who had overachieved with a club in Europe, a student of the game. The remit was right but the candidate was wrong. I still want someone to fit that remit, as opposed to an unemployed manager who has been through the English circuit.
While I would have made the same appointment, the board take responsibility for managerial appointments, good and bad, and they got this one wrong and deserve criticism.
You will note among the appropriate criticism that one journalist, banned from Celtic Park for nearly two years for lying, has used Celtic’s current vulnerability to swing his toe-capped boots.
This is Operation Destabilise Celtic, it’s an alternative strategy to apologising for lying about Celtic, or not lying about Celtic again. It has the hallmarks of an organised PR campaign. You know the script.
Ronny, all the very best and thanks for the Roar. Go win the league with some style.
976 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- ...
- 26
- »
BlantyreTim
Now that one is slanderous :)
Bobby. Where on earth have I ever said I wanted Celtic to lose or I wanted to be right.
I gave up my season book this year. I hated giving it up but I was being a hypocrit.
I view it as my failure that I couldn’t wake us up quickly enough.
We shouldn’t need to go through this just to learn.
What rankles with me most is the bleating from Paul about msm propaganda whilst doing the same on cqn.
Mike in Toronto
Interesting point but I think that In Deila’s case he was given the chance that PLG was denied as that club bowed to the revolt and it ended in shambles there. It was rejected to some degree at Celtic at first but I think he overcame that in the main and it has not been his undoing. Sadly his mono tactical approach did him over, and the players that have fully subscribed to the diet and fitness regime look like they are running on empty, there is actually something wrong in that department.
In terms of our next manager there just isn’t a candidate emerging as the one to unite behind. This is a worry. If it’s hard work, integrity and passion we want I’ve down a complete about turn on my view of John Hughes and I’d have him ahead of Lennon, Moyes, McKay, Keane or Coyle.
Big Yogi was our speaker at the golf a couple of years ago. What an incredibly genuine guy. What I do know is he thinks that John Collins is a football encyclopaedia and so there would have to be a possibility that there would some continuity there and that would be even less well received than were he to come in afresh.
To be honest the coming weeks worry me, I’ve no faith in Peter Lawwell any more, I think he has become a political player rather than Celtic’s CEO.
Just hoping for a title win with a bit of style and proper send off for Ronny in the immediate futire.
Babysitting gets in the road!!! My last post should have read… “It has been clear since July 2014, we were on the wrong track.”
PL has managed , through his downsizing strategy, to convince many that the SPL is the reason for our continued decline.
It’s BS. Of course given the financial landscape of European football we cannot expect to be amongst the top sides, or indeed any of the top English sides on a regular basis, but we sure as hell re establish ourselves as one of Europe’s top 32 on a regular basis assuming some semblance of a plan to get us there exists.
Therein lies the problem. Strachan , Deila, Moyes, you name them, cannot take us there without the infrastructure above them supporting them.
That can only come from DD and PL.
Start by moving bonus payments to the bottom of the priority list and use the cash to entice a proper manager.
I have said for years (and backed up by people who know football much better than I) that the game in Britain has stagnated, and the game in scotland even more so than in England (due, I think to the smaller money available … most of the really exciting players in England recently have not been English).
Bringing in a progressive coach wont work if the players aren’t prepared to adapt. Last season, the players seemed to be buying into some of RD’s changes (they looked fitter) even if they didn’t seem to be buying into or understanding his preferred system (except for a few week period in January).
Going old school coaching will probably stop the rot short term, but likely wont result in real improvement on the scale we would like to see (really competitive in Europe). But, going new school is a problem unless the players show a willingness to learn and, frankly in my view, work harder.
Then, there is the issue of our CEO. Making a profit with 50,000 attendance isnt a sign that he is doing a good job; with that sort of attendance, turning a profit isn’t rocket science. But are we doing the best with what we have? I dont think so .. not even close (either with the players, or financially). Even if the Board is judged on a financial basis, the only real way to improve those are (i) success in Europe (an extra $15 million per year), and (ii) increased TV revenue (which, again, will increase if we have a more successful team in Europe, which will increase our marketability, and drive up TV prices).
At the end, whether for the CEO, manager or players, it all comes down to one thing … putting a successful, entertaining team on the park. If that happens, all will share in the benefits. So, it should be the focus for everyone … for PL to the players. If it isn’t, get them out the door.
I thought we were moving in that direction with RD’s appointment. It seemed the perfect time (zombies dead, so we had a free run) to really make some changes …. but we seem to have squandered the opportunity.
For me, that wasted opportunity is the largest strike against PL. And, for me, the reason that he, and not just RD, should be replaced.
Masty 12:56
Vespacide 12:59
I do not dismiss the notion or the proven ability or the stated career plan of Senor Sampaoli.
I do dismiss the willingness of Senor Lawwell to pursue a man who would presumably come with the expectation he would be allowed to manage the playing staff.
NEGANON2 on 20TH APRIL 2016 1:53 PM
I view it as my failure that I couldn’t wake us up quickly enough.
By posting on a message board? I think you need to rethink your strategy
Haven’t logged in for ages. I’m afraid to say some of the language on here is very poor and that was always one of the plus sides of CQN. Remember we have a responsibility to younger readers to behave like adults.
\o/
Kev
Hughes has a lot of experience, success and failure. He had his football principles curbed at Falkirk resorting to a more pragmatic type of game. After a good season with Hibs, he bombed and was sacked. He rebuilt his career at ICT and that team, built for a fractional cost, has strength and ability.
No problem with his ability to handle his staff either.
Is the “name” more important than the man ?
Our support’s dissapointment at the lack of box office appeal is probably the biggest reason why not.
Blantyre
How ya’ doing, pal? All good?
I get where you are coming from… and I agree that the PLG and RD situations are not identical. But, what puzzles/troubles me is that all of us on CQN could understand how he wanted his team to play …. but almost to a man, the players didn’t seem to have a clue.
If we the fans could get it, surely, footballers who understand this stuff better than the average punter (or so I would hope!) also get it … which then begs the question, of why with one or two exceptions (last season, SJ, VVD and JD stood out for me, and this season, KT and ES) the players weren’t doing what they were (presumably) instructed.
I admit that I am a bit flummoxed by it all.
NEGANON
I haven’t confessed my deepest sins on here either,except maybe when I’m blootered but not even then cos I canny type
But…
You don’t have to say that you want to be right,you don’t have to say you want the current model to fail,whatever.
You don’t have to because it drips out of you. I love the fact that you hammer the board. I do,straight up. Plenty of time,I’ve said-nice,wish I’d said that.
But if you don’t genuinely believe that you are revelling in the current state of affairs then you need a damn good look at yourself.
I love to be right. But I love to be right at the expense of my local bookie.
Not my football team.
The more you think about it,Ronny has to go now.If Aberdeen get closer to us over the weekend,have we got the balls in the team to pick ourselves back up? I think we know the answer to that.The underlying rancour between the players and the management is at breaking point,can you imagine us going a goal behind on Sunday? We don’t have enough in our ranks to respond to the pressure.Lawwell’s own job is under threat for the first time,he won’t take the chance of not winning the SPFL……..we need a temporary lift to get us over the line,or if the new guy is not currently employed,get him in now IMO.
Some of Twitter comments.
From @tracingagent
Its funny that Celtic are happy to announce the Manager is leaving, but ignore the years of cheating in Scottish Football, #priorities
The biggest injection of feel good factor at Celtic Park would be announcement by the board on Res 12, but no,f**k it, get rid of RD instead
The Celtic PR Dept must consist of Walter f*****g Mitty and Mr f*****g Magoo.
From @bhoab
Sit back and accept cheating then hound a double title winner out his job because he got beat off Sevco.
Clap
Clap
Clap
Clap.
No more rookie managers for Celtic F.C.
No more Ex Celts as manager
An experienced foreign manager who’s teams have been known to play with flair…..
If we have any money to spend let’s spend it on a manager and let him sort out the playing staff
Bring back the Aitken and McStay Cavalry charge……
Lose two goals a game but score four
We need the bums back on the seats not in the dressing room……
JMO…………HH
Paul
, it’s been clear we were on the wrong track since our Champions League exit in August.
You left out the most important bit ….2014
so it should have said
, it’s been clear we were on the wrong track since our Champions League exit in August 2014 !!!!
Seriously though,thank god this insane fantasist as been shown the door
Onwards and upwards
Hail Hail
Havent been this happy since …..
NegAnon2 on 20th April 2016 1:23 pm
Plenty of accurate comments about the state of play with the appointment of Deila and interesting question posed to Paul.
You talk about protesting outside unless ‘Lawwell & Co.’ leave. You gave up your ST last summer I believe, for reasons relating to governance of the club rather than football or personal reasons. So…
Have you been protesting outside?
Actually
Yes get him out today
Now
PLease
I’d have liked to see Ronny stay on as some sort of Director of Football. I think his over-arching philosophy was spot on and would have pushed the club forward. I think he was lacking tactically and motivationally (although most of the players at least in public seem to like him).
JE SUIS
Yes,you are absolutely correct.
I remember getting an immediate delete from the moderators one Sunday morning for saying that I was b…….g off to the pub.
It was in context too,the whole post was wrecked if I said pottering.
So I buggered off anyway and blamed,oh I nearly named someone and he knows who he was.
(Really smashing fella once I met him,btw. His time will come)
Paul
This is Operation Destabilise Celtic, it’s an alternative strategy to apologising for lying about Celtic, or not lying about Celtic again. It has the hallmarks of an organised PR campaign. You know the script.
Utter claptrap
Only one person responsible for destabilising Celtic and we all know who that is
Peter
EDDIEINKIRKMICHAEL on 20TH APRIL 2016 1:12 PM
I’ve read a few of your posts over the last week or so and your name sticks out to me because I remember agreeing with them.
However I do not agree on being set up to fail and about Celtic fans demanding immediate success.
Most Celtic fans, myself included were reasonably satisfied with Year 1 the main reason we could see the step by step progress, not the immediate.
Players had lost weight, improved fitness, had started to look as if they were learning about the high pressing game, individual players had improved.
This season has been a disaster.
I dont believe it was all Ronny’s fault, he had 1 hand tied behind his back by an ever increasingly interfering board and an ever increasingly wide of the mark recruitment department.
However, what was Ronny’s fault was his persistence of playing players who were out of form all for what we must believe was the belief of longer term development, ie Boyata would get better with games, as would Armstrong and Mackay Steven even though they were rank rotten week after week.
More experienced players also guaranteed games during terrible form, Gordon, Lustig, Brown, Bitton included.
It was also Ronny’s fault he had no Plan B.
The disaster kept getting worse when Plan A stopped working.
Players not only in poor form, but too unfit to carry out instructions which has reached the current predicament of players simply ignoring instruction.
Its irrelevant whose fault it is about the fact the players have all stopped playing for the manager also.
There is no other way to explain it other than that, because Gordon and Deila both spoke after the hun game about us only closing down in ones and twos.
I feel you are being a tad harsh on the Celtic support in all honesty and fairness.
Any talk of Ronny staying on as a “thank you” is misguided imho. He has failed us and we owe him nothing. We have a league to win and under his mismanagement we have a distinct possibility that we may though it away. How many of the players really want to play for a lame duck manager and how might this impact on us getting over the line.
Y Not67
Why do you insist on reposting the someone else’s bollocks?
You don’t see anybody reposting the vomit you bring to the bog do ye?
Grow da _______ up ya egocentric nonce!
Paul67,
RE comments on an orchestrated campaign , I hope it bring the necessary change of Lawwell out.
Lawwell has done more damage to Celtic than the media destabilisation campaign. I welcome any additional support to remove the parasite from the club.
Do an objective analysis of the last 3 years. He is responsible for £60M lost revenue, downsizing to Sevco level, appointing a dud, not firing said dud a year ago and at the same time becoming the highest compensated employee in the clubs history.
The Lawwell story will not go away. He is finished with Celtic. The recovery plan with Lawwell involved is doomed for failure. Accept it.
ONENIGHTINLISBON
IMO,it’s not really a “thank you” to RD.
More of a realisation by the board that the only credible alternative at such a late stage in the season was to promote his deputy.
I remember several years ago, P67 and others talking about Richard Wilson’s book, Inverting the Pyramid … on the history of football formations, and how and why they developed … not only from a footballing perspective, but also from a cultural/political perspective … although the latter was not the primary thesis. FASCINATING read. Highly recommended read for anyone who loves football!!!
I’m oversimplifying, but, he talks about the british game being based on the good old fashioned protestant notion of muscular christianity and how it informed football in britain … and how it largely hasn’t changed in the hundred years since ….
If we are to rebuild Celtic, we need to undertake a similar analysis from the roots up to look at what has gone wrong, why it has gone wrong, and what we can do to change things…. we had the perfect chance over the last few seasons to start to get it right (it wont change in a season or two)…
but, its never too late to start to get it right.
New Manager?
It will not be Stevie Clarke
It should not be Big Yogi (IMHO)
It should not be Neil Lennon
It should not be Roy Keane
Not convinced it will be Davie Moyes
It is posible it could be Michael O’Neill
Not convinced at re Gary Caldwell
Don’t think it will be Paul Lambert
Don’t think it will be Mark McGhee
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on 20TH APRIL 2016 2:17 PM
JE SUIS
Yes,you are absolutely correct.
I remember getting an immediate delete from the moderators one Sunday morning for saying that I was b…….g off to the pub.
It was in context too,the whole post was wrecked if I said pottering.
So I buggered off anyway and blamed,oh I nearly named someone and he knows who he was.
(Really smashing fella once I met him,btw. His time will come)
————————————————————————–
This made me smile. :-)
I got a Yellow Card once for posting “They don’t like it up ’em…!”
Standards have slipped mate… :-))
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS
Point taken, my worry is that we don’t have the will to get over the line and knowing that the manager is going won’t help.
DJ67SUPPORTSTHERESIGNATIONOFLAWWELLDESMONDDEILA&THETORYWHORES
You know what a nonce is, right??
It gets worse on here every day…
LUCKY CODY
Welcome to the party. It’s a bit flat at the moment,but there’s plenty of us here.
Not much to celebrate,TBH,but it disnae take much for us to get the songs going.
A minor resignation. Naw,not really.
A big one? You dancing?
NATKNOW
You are in charge of an angel.
You should be grateful to the moderators for reminding you of your responsibilities!
(Hope she hasn’t heard that 12″single….)
Who would you trust to go out on Sunday and win?
For me (trust is a strong word) but I’d go for this:
Gordon
Lustig, Sviatchenko, Mulgrew, Tierney
Roberts, Brown, Bitton, Johansen
Rogic
Griffiths
Yep, that’s right, no surprises whatsoever. The reason? Those players should be sent out for each of the last 5 games to prove they are worthy of still being at Celtic (Tierney, Sviatchenko, Roberts and Rogic probably have less to prove but we need to field at least some players with a bit of fight in them).
As much as Ronny was hoist by his own petard, it was the players that kept lighting the flipping fuse…
Why is Michael O’Neill always mentioned?
He’s just signed a new 4 year contract at £500k per year.
Sorry for rambling this morning … my first appointment is running late … so you lot will have to suffer my nonsense for a little bit longer today…
Did PL fail? As a fan, I say, unquestionably. As I said earlier, in this environment, a monkey could turn a profit with Celtic…. the question is how much of a profit should be viewed as a success. (I dont even question whether protifability should be a barometer … Celtic is a company … companies live or die on profit …. ). The question is how much profit, and at what costs?
It seems to me pretty clear that PL has 3 remits: turn a profit, keep the main SH happy, and take care of himself. For DD, Celtic is a business …. most smallish business dont run on a twenty year business model … and particularly where the mainshareholder’s interest is getting us into the EPL, so he can flog us for an outrageous profit, the business model will be to keep us ticking along, making a modest profit, but with a view always to us being sold when the time is right …. and, in doing so, PL will be positioning himself for life post-Celtic (I would expect with a cushy UEFA type job).
The problem is most fans want us to be planning, not to be sold, but to be successful ….
Honestly, the blowhard rhetoric and reasoning on here is priceless.
So a team thats chasing us, 8 points behind and playing well, by their standards, are gonna make up the gap against a team, which is tactically naive/players that have downed tools/its all the players doing that have gotten us here/RD is in danger of blowing the league, when despite all this happening throughout the season they are still 8 points behind.
Little reminder, despite all these things or in spite of them we are currently 8 points clear, with 3 games at home to win a league, why not turn up on Sunday and do your bit instead of playing the big I am/told you so/Football Manager expert
Kingoh on 20th April 2016 2:36 pm
The famous Celtic FC release clause…. ;)
HH