That late winner by Matt O’Riley was the start of a great weekend for Celtic, as later, main challengers St Mirren could only manage a draw at Kilmarnock. The fact that this result is better than Celtic managed there in the League Cup is no comfort to the Paisley side’s title aspirations.
St Mirren are Celtic’s only real challengers this season, as the chasing pack slipped ever-further back. Saints are home to Newco next weekend, and if fortune goes our way, the visitors will get a new manager bounce, allowing Celtic to extend their lead at the top again. The top two meet at Celtic Park on 1 November in a game that will go a long way to deciding the title.
As alluded to above, yesterday the world’s most hilarious football club sacked manager Mick Beale after just 10 months in charge. The Beale episode is a morality tale worth exploring. A youth coach at Liverpool, Steve Gerrard took him to Ibrox in 2018. Gerrard, never considered an intellectual, won the league three years later, with Beale’s reputation in Glasgow soaring as a consequence – he was “the brains” behind the operation, apparently.
In 2021 the pair moved to Aston Villa, where they put the Midlands club through 11 months of poor results and were sacked. Beale spent 7 months out of work before being appointed manager at QPR. This is where it gets interesting.
QPR opened the season on fire, were top of the table, with Beale looking like a Premier League manager designate. The opportunity to manage in the topflight came sooner than expected, as struggling Wolves asked him to take over, but Beale rejected them. As the nights drew in, so did QPR’s season. They lost four games in five and Beale’s abilities were being laid bare.
At the same time, Giovanni van Bronckhorst was struggling at Ibrox. Just months after taking Newco to the Europa League Final, he had them in the Champions League group stage, but the demands of competing at that level exhausted his squad. They were losing heavily in Europe while slipping behind Celtic domestically.
With discontent at van Bronckhorst growing, Beale played his card, visiting Ibrox for a home game against Aberdeen. I listened to Radio Scotland that afternoon and his presence there took prominence. Newco fans wanted him, and his attendance was seen as a sign he was willing to come. van Bronckhorst was a dead man walking.
Fair play to Beale, with some sharp elbows, he got himself a multi-million-pound contract, money Newco can ill-afford but will still have to honour. He is the last type of person you would want associated with your club, but just about perfect for a rival.
Let’s talk strategy. Clubs have immediate demands: win the next game. and for some, win the league. Then they have long-term objectives: improve so we have a better chance of winning in future. Fans of all clubs overwhelmingly make immediate demands. Even when clubs know their short-term actions harm long-term objectives, fan demands can be so overwhelming they become irresistible.
That is horrible, destructive, but very common in football. Newco had an unbelievably good manager in van Bronckhorst. He took them to a Europa League Final, eliminated Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic on the way to winning the Scottish Cup, then took the club into the Champions League group stage for the first time.
Newco were not ready for it. How do you deal with losing 1-7 to Liverpool and still get your players full of confidence and pumped up for the weekend? These were questions they didn’t have answers for, because none of them had the necessary experience. Even clever Newco fans I know rationalised to themselves how van Bronckhorst’s football was bad, and change was necessary to prevent inevitable decline.
How ridiculous does that sound now? van Bronckhorst had earned the right to go through a bad patch and would have emerged a stronger manager with a better team. Instead, the Newco board succumbed to fan pressure – which remember, at all clubs is overwhelmingly focused on immediate satisfaction. Tempted by the fruit of another, they sacked the most successful manager they are every likely to have and appointed a great self-promoter.
I spoke to Peter Lawwell often during season 2020-21. It was clear from around October that Celtic were unlikely to win the league and that change was inevitable. Lawwell had to balance the immediate pressure of winning a very important league, with what was best for our future.
Everyone (including me) was telling the CEO the same thing: change had to happen and the sooner the better. Celtic took soundings. Without going into detail, midway through that season, no one worthy of the job would touch us with a barge pole. Neil Lennon had won five out of five domestic trophies and after his first elimination from a cup competition, a mob wanted him sacked. In those circumstances, only a loser wanting the pay cheque would come.
At the start of this season I gave Newco a 33% chance of winning the league. Celtic signed talented players in their early 20s, Newco signed players typically five years older, at their peak – and most of them physically taller and stronger. Again, they had a short-term strategy: win now and think nothing of the long-term.
It failed, but 33% still feels right for what we knew in the summer. Their alternative, to build a sustainable and successful team, would have had a lower chance of winning the title this season, but at least they would not have burned all that money on players who will do well to finish second.
Signings like Celtic’s, full of young talent that will improve, gives you a platform for the future and a chance of eventually competing at a higher level. Now, Newco are under Uefa supervision for overspending, making the strategy which won the league in 2021 no longer available. They are penniless and have a reputation for being forced to sack managers during their first rough patch.
They have yet to face the truth about where they are as a club. At board level, the backroom and technical staff, recruitment, sport science, commercials (oh the commercials!), football management and player squad, they are a million miles short of Celtic’s standard. We have departmental heads with more experience, business and football acumen than anyone at Ibrox, from the CEO down.
Every new season they will start with a puncher’s chance of winning the league. That is all they have: ‘Buy our tickets, we might get lucky!’ It will remain this way until some very ballsy CEO faces the immediate-gratification junkies and says “No!” I see no sign of this happening. Sisyphus FC are stuck in a fruitless struggle for another generation, at least!
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Not GFTB but the Amazing work colleague.
Gerry couldnae go without the wee wan.
I do understand that.
Pete….i’ll meet you at Jocks statue on the night…we can exchange….
BRRB/AT has my number if you wanna co-ordinate this
H.H.
BELMONTBRIAN on 2ND OCTOBER 2023 8:08 PM
Evening all.
If the blog doesn’t mind, a wee tune that will always remind me of Mick (The Mole) Beale.
Chas & Dave – Rabbit 1981
https://youtu.be/qGNojF9qKS0?si=08QFXoxWO7sZt82w
Superb Brian :-))))
HH
That sounds perfect.
Btw I’ll be the man with……
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KJkoBH68njQ&pp=ygUpdGhlIG1hbiB3aXRoIHRoZSByZWQgZmFjZSBsYXVyZW50IGdhcm5pZXI%3D
I have to go. I normally go into work before 6 in the morn. I’m going in later 10ish.
A very good friend disclosed he had a very worrying condition. He was as jovial as ever.
Lets hope we get 3 points aff Lazio.
I’ll look for the Red Indian ;-))
Later dood
H.H.
Anyone/Mod what’s the email for the site’s Modfather again ?? Non-complaint related contact y’unnerstant
Thanks
Quad…I owe you an apology…Leggy didn’t send those fotos…did u ask her if she was wearing red ;-))
H.H.
Paul67@wedontcare.com….is not it ;-))
THELURKIN – no apologies needed at all mate.
I sent her partner Mark the corner snip of the pic – featuring yer good self – and YES, he and Jan were there at that time!! He said ‘There was a bunch of guys next to us at the time. Weird’ (not sure if the coincidence was weird or the shipwrecked types were weird LOL..
WHATARETHECHANCES CSC
PS: her partner Mark is a Victory and Celtic fan from Melbourne and I sure hope he’s scored a brief to see the hoops while they’re in town.
Don’t…there will be a fight…inclined is not certainty
H.H
😂😂
Good morning cqn from a damp, dank, dark Garngad.
The gift that keeps on giving…eh just keeps giving, they are a laughing stock.
HH
D :)
Good morning all from Govanhill. I hope ye are all hale and hearty.
CLOUD9 on 2ND OCTOBER 2023 9:54 PM
So Michael Beale is gone, cut loose by a regime that is a shambles. Ibrox has been a visible shambles for most of the past twelve years, and a hidden one in the years prior.
There is some hatred being directed at him – why?. I don’t hate him – why would we hate him? He ends up as a patsy – in some ways I have sympathy for him.
……………….
WOW…..Just when you think you have heard it all, along comes a so called Celtic supporter who didnt hate Beale, and who offers sympathy to BEALE !
The VERY SAME Beale who described the then Celtic manager as ” LUCKY”
The VERY SAME Beale who had NO QUAL,MS about undermining a decent Guy like VAN BROPCKHURST, by turning up at Ipox for a game ( Huns v Dons ), more or less saying…” LOOK AT ME EVERYONE, I’M the new Messiah”.
The VERY SAME Beale who earlier this season after being FAIRLY BEATEN by Celtic at Ipox, claimed that the ” OFFICIALS didn’t do their Job” ?
The VERY SAME Beale, who wasn’t slow at throwing HIS Players under a Bus recently, DESPITE the FACT that HE had signed many of them ?
BEALE was/is an EGO INFLATED Hun RAT, who had VERY LITTLE ” Sympathy” for GVB or anyone else around him, I suspect ?
If he wasnt BLAMING Officials he was BLAMING HIS Players….Beale would NEVER take ANY BLAME for poor results and/or performances.
BEALE….A CHUMP….TOAD and RAT of a man.
BIGRAILROADBLUES on 3RD OCTOBER 2023 7:33 AM
Good morning all from Govanhill. I hope ye are all hale and hearty.
…………
Thanks mate for the LINK from the behind the Celtic end, to MATTS Winning Goal last night.
Are YOU AFF the drink for this month ?
IF you were a Hun….you would be BACK on the Drink Pronto.
LOL
HH
CLOUD9 on 2ND OCTOBER 2023 9:54 PM
So Michael Beale is gone, cut loose by a regime that is a shambles. Ibrox has been a visible shambles for most of the past twelve years, and a hidden one in the years prior.
There is some hatred being directed at him – why?. I don’t hate him – why would we hate him? He ends up as a patsy – in some ways I have sympathy for him.
…………….
Jesus….What next….” ALEX RAE is a FINE Coach and Man…he has just been mis understood by all of his former Employers ” ?
I HATE Beale, Fat Sally, John Broon, Barry Ferguson, Ian Ferguson, Butcher, Hurlock, Duncan Ferguson, HATELEY, Durrant, Kevin Thompson, Greig, McCann,….the list is endless…
Does that make me a Bad Man ?
LOL
I also HATE DAVIS and RAE ( QUARK).
I MAY be proved wrong in time, but does anyone seriously believe that Davis and Quark are gonna make Sevco better ?
Just seen Tom Rogic has announced his retirement.
30 Yr old.
What a talent.
Tom Rogic retires aged 30.
More behind that Tom Rogic story than meets the eye.
A clutch of A-League clubs would snap him up – esp Sydney or City – if he was even near 100%.
A true gent and a great Celt. Awrrabest Tom R. HH
Tom Rogic retirement statement is something else. Can someone please post it as I’m a numpty.
Beware…Kleenex at the ready. And, yes, we’re a wonderful club and Tom is a wonderful person.
Good luck to the Hunskelper Tom Rogic,I think his knee issues have caught up with him,
Tom Rogic has retired from football at the age of 30 to spend time with his family, and he’s paid an emotional tribute to Celtic as he hangs up his boots.
Rogic left Celtic for West Brom last summer but things didn’t go to plan and he left under freedom of contract after just 12 months. He was the Premiership player of the season under Ange Postecoglou in 2021/22 but left to try his luck down south, managing just two goals in 23 appearances. The Wizard of Oz is a Parkhead great, fondly remembered for clutch moments in big-matches such as the goal that sealed their Invincible Treble against Aberdeen.
And as he hangs up his boots, he’s poured his heart out in tribute to the club – and in particular Dermot Desmond and Peter Lawwell who helped he and his wife start a family with an incredible gesture. He wrote on Instagram: “After careful consideration I have made the decision to retire from professional football. I have always been rather private with things in my personal life but I feel given the significance, I think it is important for people to understand why and how I have made my decision.
“Throughout the past seven years, my wife and I have been on an immensely challenging journey with fertility issues. After years of trying and many failed rounds of IVF, my wife and I were fortunate enough to welcome the birth of our daughter in 2021. I have loved every minute of being a dad and consider it my greatest achievement in life.
“After experiencing some more struggles and heartache with fertility treatment, we have recently received the amazing news that our family is growing and we will be expecting twins in 2024. Given our past and how hard we have fought for this, along with the challenges that will come with having twins and a 2 year old, now seems like the right time to give my focus and attention to what is the most important thing in my life – my family.”
He went on: “I feel very lucky to have had a career where I spent the majority of my time playing at Celtic Football Club, one of the biggest clubs in the world, playing European football, winning many trophies and playing in front of 60,000 fans each week. I have also been lucky enough to represent my country with the Socceroos on over 50 occasions and experienced playing in major international tournaments.
“I’d like to thank all of my teammates for everything over the past 12 years, it’s been a special journey which I’ll look back on with fond memories. I feel very lucky to have formed some wonderful friendships through football and experienced so many special moments together.
“I would also like to thank Peter Lawwell and Dermot Desmond. Without their help all of this would not have been possible. Through Peter and Dermot, I was put in direct contact with one of the world’s leading medical experts, which eventually led to my wife and I being placed at the clinic that would give us the best chance possible to start a family.
“To the managers who supported and guided me through some tough times, I’d like to say a big thank you to Brendan Rodgers, Neil Lennon, John Kennedy and Ange Postecoglou. Indeed I would like to thank everyone in football who has given me such great opportunity throughout my career to be part of the game I love. And finally, I want to thank all the fans who have given me so much support, you have been everything to me. I’m looking forward to what comes next and can’t wait to see what the future has in store for us.”
Best wishes to Tom Rogic and thank you for all the special moments in the years at Celtic. To his wife and soon to be family of 3 hail, hail!
Happy retirement big Tom. 👍
Stark difference atween us and thems…
Tom Rogic’s career ends due to IVF issues
Mr Goram’s time ended due to UVF issues.
HH
I thought that was an impressive `Goodbye` missive from Tom Rogic.
PS Seems to have a more positive view of Peter Lawwell and Dermot Desmond than many on here who have never met the duo !
ALL the BEST to BIG TOM and his Family.
A truly gifted Player for Celtic and he gave the Celtic support such wonderful times.
On occasions TOM ROGIC reminded me of one of my Favourite ever Players…ZINIDINE ZIDANE.
BOTH of these great players had the ability to look as though they were GLIDING across the Grass whilst keeping control of the Ball.
I never tired of watching ZZ…..and I can say the same about Big TOM…….HUNSKELPER !
HH TOM and Family.
Re. the information regarding Alex Rae recently being employed as a hearse driver.
In all seriousness can you imagine him arriving at the home of grieving relatives? He would scare the absolute bejasus out of them.
EMERALDBEE. Aaargh!
He looks like a combination of Voldemort, Nosferatu and that guy out of A Series of Unfortunate Events – Count Olaf.
Thank you, Tom Rogic. You gave great pleasure to us Celtic supporters. You played football the Celtic way.
I wish you and your family all the best.
Happy retirement Tom …will forever remember your winning goal in the final ..you brought Lisbon to a standstill …we were there for the 50th anniversary …legend
https://youtu.be/w3QTfenISAo?si=1FVkWGiW8sP48Rsk
Celtic tribute to Tom Rogic,well done to the Club for helping him and his family
Darren O Dea talking of the B teams game tomorrow.Anyone know if this is played at lesser Hampden or Shyberry? Thanks in advance
https://youtu.be/nlVcmBhgpPQ?si=f0LvZafPvFr9-itz
HH
The Wizard of Oz retires….best wishes and thanks Tom…especially for the Hun skelping
Mod please send PeteC my email addy, ta
Hh.H.
AT- I think the game is at Lesser Hampden, I hope we stop paying the Airdrie huns money now,until Barrowfield gets upgraded
Good luck to big Tam and his family.
Regarding Lawell, thousands of Celtic supporters have met him and say the same thing, he is a Liar and not a nice human being.
D :)