2014 saw Celtic win their third consecutive league title, but we didn’t reach either cup final. A period of significant change got underway during the summer when we said farewell to Neil Lennon.
Neil took over from Tony Mowbray, his first managerial appointment after working with the Youths at Lennoxtown. His first season was the one that got away. Defeat at Inverness with the title within their grasp, Walter Smith’s Rangers took their third successive title against the third difference Celtic manager.
Three months into the next season, Celtic were 10 points behind a Whyte-McCoist inspired Rangers, but that was overcome, with interest, by Christmas. Celtic went on to win the league by 20 points, although 10 of them were as a penalty for Rangers incurring an insolvency event.
Thereafter it was plan sailing for Neil. He never looked back in the league and reached the Champions League group stage twice, progressing to the knock-out stage on the first occasion. He learned the managerial ropes at Celtic and did enough in his four years here to establish himself as a European-class manager. He was our third unqualified success in four appointments.
By this summer it was evidence to all, including Neil, that significant rebuilding was needed. The job was handed to Ronny Deila.
Ronny’s first challenge came in the Champions League qualifiers in the form of Legia Warsaw. Despite the record books showing Celtic progressed after a 3-0 default home win, Legia wiped the floor with Celtic home and away. Celtic looked like a team of strangers, unfamiliar with the system they were asked to play.
That was, of course, true, the system was unfamiliar, but it’s execution was miscalculated, the on-field results were deserved. The Champions League playoff round against Maribor was unusual inasmuch as Celtic dominated the away first leg and deserved more than the 1-1 draw, but the Slovenians arrived in Glasgow with their game face on. Celtic were outplayed and out of the Champions League.
Things slowly got better, although home performances against Motherwell (by my measure the worst) and Hamilton Accies (who were impressive), and latterly Ross County indicated there is still a long way to go.
Ronny’s Celtic found their feet in the Europa League, where they finished second behind a very accomplished Salzburg. The away performances against Salzburg and Astra gave an insight into how things could be for this Celtic team.
It was, to say the least, disappointing not to qualify for the Champions League. It denied the club millions of pounds and shaded our trump card in to be used in attracting players, but in reality we’re not a Champions League team this season. The Europa’ gave us an opportunity to play European football on our level, pick up coefficient points and extended interest after Christmas (if you’re young this won’t mean much, if you’re my age, you’ll recall this being our Holy Grail).
Inter Milan await in the next round. They are also going through a rebuilding exercise and are as vulnerable to lesser-resourced teams as Celtic – so unlike Juventus two years ago – we have a sporting chance.
The tactical direction of the club is visibly distinct from what went before Ronny. Is this a good thing? Probably. Neil Lennon and his players over-achieved in their first Champions League season on a scale it’s difficult to measure. That squad had no right to reach the levels they did; theirs was a herculean effort. Play Matthews at left back, alongside a central pair of Wilson and Ambrose. Put Miku up front, with Mulgrew and Ledley in the middle – then go beat Barcelona. It was beyond impossible.
Barca, Ajax and Milan were prepared for Celtic last season; we finished bottom, out of ideas and direction on that stage. We needed to change, same again wasn’t going to wash.
Ronny’s played a high-pressing game, mostly with players who are unaccustomed to the demands of this game-plan. This has been a mistake on several occasions, most notably against Legia and Maribor. He’s working on player fitness, but in all likelihood it will take the next two transfer windows before he can craft the squad into the shape he wants it to be.
We’re halfway through the season and, with Aberdeen playing before us tomorrow, there’s a chance they could go top of the table, for a couple of hours, anyway. That’s not good enough, by any measure. Notwithstanding the revamp, we should have done better in the Champions League qualifiers and we should be further ahead in the league, but the fundamentals remain intact:
We needed to start post-Neil Lennon with a new tactical strategy.
Trying hard not to be disrespectful to Aberdeen, but we’re going to win the league.
We’re in both cup competitions.
We remain in the Europa League.
I was happy with the direction we took in appointing Ronny Deila and remain so. The problems of the last six months could be classified as First World Problems. We’ll get over them, while others watch on from the Other Worlds.
Have a Happy Celtic New Year, strap in and enjoy the ride, I promise it’ll be a great one.
Sale on at CQNBookstore, fill your stockings.
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Aiden Bhoy
21:28 on 1 January, 2015
Sandman
When the CEO of the SPFL is saying you can ditch millions of debt and carry on as the same club should not go unchallenged. If Celtic are comfortable with this statement it is a slap in the face to guy’s like me that have paid money into a bent game for years.
================================================
Celtic aren’t slapping you in the face.
You are perceiving such due to the bumbling and ineptitude of Doncaster and the other half-witted imbeciles.
By their incompetence, you are driven to turn on Celtic, who have done NOTHING but forge on with their own interests foremost. Suck up your indignation and turn your vitriol on the SFA, if you feel the need.
Stand by the Celtic modus operandi, which is the PROFESSIONAL way to carry out business, and subdue your own petty emotional responses; that’s not a slight or jibe – it’s merely to illustrate you’re missing the bigger picture, and Celtic to date, aren’t.
How many times have we heard the call for statemtents through all those Hun incarnations and ownership struggles? How many times have Celtic been called upon to make ‘definitive’ statements? And how many times have Celtic done the correct thing, turned form any association with failure, and let the enemy continue to dig their own grave…
On a wee aside, if it’s the same club will they pay their debts?
Thought not.
BCW
Just from you.
You said the board took a punt on RD.
I agreed and explained that it was a gamble. You have yet to agree or disagree with me after numerous posts today.
I then asked if you thought this was good custodianship. Still no answer. I presume …due to a lack of input from your side ..that the question which arose from your punt assertion must be too tough. Either that or you are trolling or you dont know the meaning of the word punt.
Have a nice life. I have wasted enough time trying to solicit an answer from you.
I need and expect a higher level of debate otherwise it is pountless. Please dont take this as an insult just an observation from our attempt at civilised debate today. I will not make the same mistake tagain.
HH
BIG-CUP-WINNERS
So whilst we laugh at Sevco and the ongoing shambles you feel we are heading the same way or are in decline but what would save us or galvanise the support is a few simple to the point statements regarding Sevco, Msm, SFA, SPFL? Would it work do you think?
I do think of Robert Kelly with the Irish flag, and his refusal to accept it and fly it (rightly so), and to even say sod it we would stop playing football and play Gaelic games from Parkhead if the SFA at the time stuck to their unreasonable guns.
Our board could do with that attitude at times.
Margaret McGill
21:47 on 1 January, 2015
Modern Celtic PLC are Old Firm
Old firm lovers
Old firm supporters
Old firm scum
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am not sure what you think the individual fan Can do.
Inter Milan is the only game to look forward to over the coming months, hopefully other European nights as well.
I have no interest in that tribute act, I want every team wiping the floor with them when they eventually get back in to the top League.
The referees are definitely to be watched.
Who’s watching the watchers? ;))
Petec,
I noticed you name checked me earlier today about RD. You reckon RD will be given until October next year if he again fails to qualify for the CL this yeat ?
HH
hun skelper
21:36 on 1 January, 2015Peter lawwell has just came out and said Doncaster talks a lot of shite and the Huns are deid.What does it change ??????
What’s wrong with telling the truth mate? HH
Sandman
I’m not wanting Celtic to make statements about Sevco. I’m wanting Celtic to make change at the top of Scottish football so we will never be cheated like we have been again. If we say nothing we are endorsing these comments by Doncaster. Nothing appears to have been learned from the last three years.
Celtic won’t say anything because Peter Lawwell is desperate to have Rangers “back”
This is the simple truth and anyone who has spoken to a senior manager at Celtic in the last 3 years knows this to be the case.
Depressing.
Doncaster’s timing suggests an admin event might be on the cards pretty soon – that’s my reading of it.
Awe_Naw
Higher level of debate……….you ain’t fooling no one. If you’d read the words after punt……..that should’ve been enough. Why should I respond to you if you can’t read what’s in front of you ?
Play the ball eh ? Read your words: “the question which arose from your punt assertion must be too tough”; “you are trolling”; “dont know the meaning of the word punt”
But the piece de la resistance “I need and expect a higher level of debate”.
PS Again where did I slander you. Come on let’s see it.
hun skelper
21:36 on 1 January, 2015
Peter lawwell has just came out and said Doncaster talks a lot of shite and the Huns are deid.
What does it change ??????
==============================
Exactly.
Almost.
What is does is bring a negative perception to Celtic where it really matters – in the big bad financial world.
Willfully associating ourselves with eternally failing losers?
Validating their existence by actually acknowledging they exist to trouble us?
Allowing the desperate shysters in the media to quote us alongside THEM, tainting us with the ‘Old Firm’ coupling we’re so eager to ditch?
Giving THEM air, putting THEM in every headline as some mythical ‘battle’ of wits is trumped up to 11?
And you KNOW it would happen – the Huns wi’ laptops are fantasising about it with every ne wpos ton here demanding it.
THAT is what some want? To give THEM a cause to hate us some more, to shout about it? Just so you can nod with affirmation and mumble your approval that all your insecurities about Celtic’s perspective have been satisfied?
Jee-sus. Wise up ffs.
An official statement from a Celtic supporter
on behalf of Celtic.
In 2012 Rangers FC were liquidated
and died.
I’m 100% confident PL and our entire board
will agree with this statement.
They will hate us statement or not.
Am I watching a fair game or am I watching a game that will favour one club at all costs.
ItaliaBhoy
10 million back in the coffers for us wouldn’t be too bad I guess….
Who are these senior managers at Celtic who claim this? Slight breach of confidentiality there if that unlikely statement is true.
Awe_Naw_No_Annoni_Oan_Anaw_Noo
21:55 on 1 January, 2015
Petec,
I noticed you name checked me earlier today about RD. You reckon RD will be given until October next year if he again fails to qualify for the CL this yeat ?
HH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I hope so, Happy New Year Awe Naw, The Board are going all in with Ronny Deila, he deserves the Time to get us up to the level of the top European teams, however long that takes. I know what yer saying and if Celtic dinnae make the CL next season, the pressure will be a lot heavier and it will be easier to get rid of Ronny.
Time is precious.
Like you, I want Celtic to be the very best they can be.
Just in. Kids to bed. All alone. Thought my main source of ire would be no celtic match to watch back.
And then the Doncaster stuff.
James F – if you’re about I read about it first on your blog. Excellent piece Sir and far from the first in that respect.
So rankers III / Sevco II seems ready to be parachuted into exactly the same league place as its (for now) still existing incestuous cousin?
This does it for me. The mild mannered happy clapper that I am and all.
This is PL’s moment it seems.
Who are you with Peter?
Celtic or the Scottish football establishment?
HH jamesgang
Robert88
It’s just my opinion, but a little leadership would save us wandering about in the dark.
BCW
you never ansqwered my custodian questions arising from YOUR punt assertion then you supposed that I believed Fabio Cappellos assertion that we are a long ball team without any evidence of that whatsoever.
Didn’t you now ?
HH
I’m sure I’ve seen that proliferation of typos somewhere recently……
BIG-CUP-WINNERS
We are very much in the light and going forwards in a professional business manner.
Just read the Jambos letter to HMFC,on TSFM.If you have not read it already,go and do so.
It really hits the mark.The guy is a solicitor and also contributes financially to the FoH.If Miss Budge replies indicating that she agrees with the Joker Doncaster,then I think FoH could start to fold.this guy seems to mean business.
Another good point raised,was why did Doncaster let the Hearts fans,and Dunfermline fans,go through months of trauma,worrying about the loss of club and history,when all he needed to do was make a we phone call stating,nothing to worry about,just liquidate and leave all your debts behind you,and you will still be Hearts and Dunfermline so no big deal and save yourselves a fortune into the bargain.
Time for season ticket withdrawal———round 2
Aiden Bhoy
21:57 on 1 January, 2015
Sandman
I’m not wanting Celtic to make statements about Sevco. I’m wanting Celtic to make change at the top of Scottish football so we will never be cheated like we have been again. If we say nothing we are endorsing these comments by Doncaster. Nothing appears to have been learned from the last three years.
===========================================
Doncaster’s just an interloper who dresses like an angry lesbian and knows sweet feck all about the culture he’s shoe-horned himself into.
Played from the back by Ogilvie, he’s a tragedy if an exec, no wit or initiative, haunted by his own ‘armageddon’ nonsense, these latest bletherings of an incompetent sound like the last protestations of a bewildered, spent vessel; he’ll most likely be squawking at the behest of the Craft, more than likely a prelude to some league-reconstruction initiative to rescue the Zombie car-crash.
Why Celtic need even read/listen to his ramblings is beyond me, let alone give him any ceredibility by actually commenting.
The lower Scottish football crashes at the hands of it’s myopic ‘leadership’ the better our chances of quitting the panto for something more rewarding and fulfilling.
Just read Doncaster’s statement. Looks as if he had every intention of stating his assertion,regardless of relevance to the question asked. Or even of the facts.
He has presented his own opinion as that of his employer,during an interview in his official capacity.
Disciplinary proceedings must follow. Gross misconduct,no compensation.
No arguments
Sandman, Doncaster is not only an interloper.
He is CEO of the SPFL, and as such his statements have the weight of that office.
He runs the league we play in.
Oh bobbio
Hasn’t he suffered enough?
Has he fek!
And neither have they!
Grrrrrrrr
Love to you by the way!
HH jamesgang
judester
got a link?
Well. After reading what Doncaster has said today,I’m looking forward to when my season ticket comes up for renewal, Celtic will mail me to ask why I’m not renewing and I’ll be polite and say that I’m not paying £800 to watch a team that can cheat at will, be assisted by the Football authority that allows that cheating to go on, and My own club says nothing publicly regarding this situation, then I may get a bit naughty after that.
But if nothing happens I’ll never go back to Celtic park knowing we are up against a team of cheats.
BMCUWPs, if those views were not sanctioned, agreed.
If they were sanctioned, there is a can of worms.
Put yer hands in the Air
Evening all.
Firstly happy New year to all on this blog.
Doncasters statement .
Where do you start.
Yogiy. Thanks for the link from wings above Scotland. Sanity restored.
The smsm will be all over the statement like a rash. It prolongs the old firm agenda.
Rather than waste needless energy, it’s best ignored. If anyone expects Celtic to ever make a statement refuting Doncaster don’t hold your breath.
All evidence points to our board gagging for their return.
Res 12 is the effort by shareholders who are basically fans. I love and support the dedication of Auldheid and others to bring proper justice to the game , what I don’t see is any motivation from our custodians.
When I was talking recently to a provincial club supporter he made the valid point that we have been bedfellows with the Orcs for years. All through the years they were funded by dodgy tax schemes and bank loans with no prospect of being repayed.
We shared sponsorship.
We manufactured a voting system in coalition with the huns where 2 votes in a group of 10 or 12 held the real power.
Where in the good for the game was that voting system.
Overall can we be surprised at Doncaster ?
In hindsight if we adopted a stand alone policy years ago, then we could shout from the rooftops.
The rest of Scottish football look on us as being in cahoots with our enemy , at boardroom level at least.
Remember it was the fans of the smaller club’s who stood against the suits that would gladly have had a reincarnation in the top league or below.
Although I despair at the governance of our game I do detect a change for better on the park.
The challenge of Aberdeen & Dundee Utd are welcome.Can DD & PL afford to continue their complacency ?
Finally , some posters are advocating a boycott when we play the zombies. May I ask what right has anyone to dictate what other Celtic fans do ?
Personally anyone who misses ” the old firm” is welcome to their delusions. My feeling though is for the supporters who attend on a regular basis. Especially those who travel the length of the country home and away. Supporting Celtic fc is more about the strip , the company of family and friends,cheering on a common cause , the highs , the lows , the elation , the crushing disappointment.
In the case of CQN, for me it’s broadened horizons, made friends and helped contribute to make life a little more tolerable for people far less fortunate.
In the big picture the board or custodians don’t represent us.
They never really have done.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Regan , Doncaster, Ogilvie , their type will always be there until Celtics custodians deem otherwise.
Ignoranceisblisscsc
Awe_Naw
Look this ain’t going anywhere positive eh ?
I think you have been pretty pretentious and incoherent, including your wee salt and vinegar, battered fish stuff the other day.
I’m actually still laughing at you for “I need and expect a higher level of debate”. Serious question, is that for real, a wind-up or are you inebriated ?
If you want to continue we’ll go onto the previous post ?
goodnight Timland
not a happy clapper :-(((
pullyourfingeroutpetecsc
HH
Petec,
He might not even survive that our bored will ditch him if ST sales plummet. They are that myopic. DD never wanted him as a number one in fact neither did PL.
HH
Oldtim67
I feel exactly the same.
But how can we?
It’s them, not us.
Sandman 2149-
You talk of Celtic forging on with their own interests first and foremost. Key to this would be to do what they can to ensure that a situation could not occur again such as that which occurred in the period 2008-11 when Rangers used money they did not have to build a team that deprived Celtic of trophies, CL entry and the attendant prize money.
It may well have cost Celtic something in the region of £50 – £60 million in CL appearance money alone in that period. Factor in more intangible revenues such as increased merchandise from CL participation then who knows how much money we are talking overall that was deprived from Celtic by this financial doping over a period of 3 years.
A key lever in making sure that such a situation does not occur ever again is ensuring that if a club lives so extravagantly outwith its means that it is liquidated then its history cannot be transferred to a phoenix club. Look at the example of similar situations in England, Hereford United being the most recent example. If this principle is not applied, what is there to stop clubs from overspending unsustainably time and time again to financially dope their way to trophies they wouldn`t otherwise have won?
The temptations to do so are greater now than they were in 2008-2011 given the additional sponsorship money open to CL participants from 2015 onwards.
Indeed as a PLC I would have thought Celtic would be obliged to make sure these rules are observed as its in their shareholders and the company`s financial interest. Surely they should be challenging Doncaster`s comments on that basis.
To be clear – I`m not expecting an inflammatory statement from Celtic along the lines of “ha ha Rangers are deid, we won the war.” This isn`t about rubbing peoples` noses in what happened almost 3 years ago now. And many Zombies will think whatever they want anyhow – they are good at rewriting and misinterpreting history. But its about making sure such financial doping can`t happen again.
Therefore I think its absolutely up to Celtic and the other SPFL clubs to draw a line in the sand following Doncaster`s comments and enforce the rules that are applied in other football territories i.e. club gets liquidated, successor phoenix club has no claim to its history.
Otherwise we are left with a diminished sport tainted with suspicion and forever open to financial doping. I like to see fair contests, a rigged charade has no appeal.
Robert88
22:11 on
1 January, 2015
BIG-CUP-WINNERS
We are very much in the light and going forwards in a professional business manner.
==========================
It’s just my opinion of course, but I don’t feel in the light, in terms of what Celtic “think” on these matters.
OldTim, it’s not being up against a team of cheats, they have always been cheats, from their signing policy to their honest mistakes to non payment of tax, it’s that we have had opportunity to expose this, and Res.12 apart, have done nothing, and the governing bodies enable and encourage it.
And Res. 12 was a supporters initiative, the Club may be running with it now, but it only happened because Canamalr agitated for, and organised it. Aided and abetted ably by others.