Sort it out
Watching Celtic stumble to another defeat in
Europe this week wasn’t as traumatic as one would expect. Roma was quite
obviously the better side but we do tend to help such teams by some chronic
defending. Fans around me in the north stand were of the opinion that the team
is in transition and Europe is something of a bridge too far this season. One
even suggested that, painful as it was, the failure to beat Kairat Almaty in
the Champions League play off might have been a blessing in disguise as it probably
saved us from watching the team take some even more comprehensive beatings. Although
we would have faced the likes of Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Arsenal and Sporting
CP, I tend to think you take your chances and the money going in the UCL and
give it your best shot.
Some of the fans around me were more concerned
with domestic matters this season and continuing an almost unparallelled period
of domestic domination. One remarked, ‘with our injury list and the way we’ve
been playing, it’s some going to be just 3 points behind Hearts.’ Personally, I
still think Hearts will be coming down with the Christmas decorations and will
finish third this season but I’ve been wrong before. Having said that, they’ll
never have a better opportunity of catching both the big Glasgow clubs in such mediocre
form and ending a 40 year wait for someone out-with the Glasgow duopoly winning
the title. I simply can’t see Celtic being so disjointed for the rest of the
season and remain confident the Hoops will be there when the finishing line
approaches in May.
Wilfried Nancy has had something of a baptism of
fire in the Celtic hot seat. We praised Martin O’Neill for coming through a
very demanding week of St Mirren (away) Feyenoord (away) and Hibs (Away) and
winning all three games. Nancy had Hearts and Roma at Celtic Park for starters and
chose to tinker with the team’s shape for those important games. Hearts fans
were obviously delighted to win the match but in retrospect only poor finishing
from Maeda and Engels stopped Celtic from taking something from the game. Talk by
some media pundits of Hearts ‘schooling’ Celtic was simply nonsense. They have
clearly improved under McInnes and are a dangerous side, but they rode their
luck against a Celtic side playing well below par.
Nancy now faces that rugged and physical St
Mirren side in the League Cup Final on Sunday. The Saints will only be
encouraged by Celtic’s form but the bigger pitch at Hampden will make it more
difficult for them to deny Celtic space. They will have had 8 days to prepare
for the cup final, having not kicked a ball since they beat Dundee United 2-0 a
week ago. They will be fresh and have had ample time to practice their game
plan so Celtic are going to have to earn it the hard way on Sunday. The last
three games between the clubs have been very close so Celtic will need to step
up and play. There’s a lot riding on the result of Sunday’s league cup final.
Wilfried Nancy needs to convince the fans he is the right man to develop
Celtic. The Celtic hierarchy need a positive result to lighten the mood around
them and the club. The team needs the confidence boost being winners will give
them and reignite their season. There is no room for hiding or empty shirts on cup
final day.
The Celtic fans will play their part at Hampden
as they always do. Most of us wish the support was united and in harmony with
the club but as you all know there are factions who seem distracted by the
ongoing dispute with the board. I’m not sure to what extent the wider support is
behind them on this. We all realise the board made a complete hash of the
summer transfer window and have allowed players in key positions to leave
without adequate replacements being brought in. They failed to communicate
adequately with the fans just what was going on and when the deal for the long
sought after striker, Kasper Dolberg, collapsed and he joined Ajax, it led to a
desperate scramble to bring in players in the dying days of the transfer
window. It was obvious the squad started the season weaker, especially in
forward areas, and when the injuries piled up, form tailed off.
The 56,188 fans who paid to watch Celtic take on
Roma this week are no fools. They can see that the side who took Bayern Munich
all the way in the Champions League last season has been stripped of players
who contributed over 50 goals that season (Kuhn, Idah & Kyogo) and that
they weren’t replaced with like for like quality. We know the Scottish league
isn’t an easy place to entice good players to come too, but the club has the
finances to attract certain targets and let them know that in time they’d let
them go should a bigger league come calling. Fans were right to express
disquiet at the decline in the standard of the team and the lack of
communication from the board to explain just what was going on.
The march of supporters from St Mary’s church to
the stadium for the Hearts game attracted a decent crowd and there were banners
displayed at the stadium protesting the board’s failings. Any parallels drawn
between the situation now and what occurred in the early 1990s are facile and
wide of the mark. Celtic was facing insolvency in 1993-94, the stadium was
crumbling and the team ill equipped to take on free spending Rangers. Today the
side is dominant, finances strong and only the perceived poor performance in
identifying and signing good players to strengthen the side is holding Celtic
back on the field.
Off the field, the ongoing dispute with sections
of the support rumbles on. The Celtic Collective, an umbrella title used to represent
a considerable number of fans has raised concerns about board incompetence, the
banning of the Green Brigade, dropping standards on the field, a poor match day
experience, ticketing prices, the ageing stadium and poor communication with
fans. There may be some truth in all of this, but there are those who point to
42 trophies won in 25 years, a healthy financial position and a board duty
bound to respond to local authority safety guidelines on behaviour in football
grounds. My take on this is that the fans are nowhere near as united behind the
‘rebels’ as they were in the 1990s when the old board almost led Celtic into
administration. There are many who see faults on both sides and wish they’d
sort things out and we can get back to being a united support, focusing on
backing our team for 90 minutes and not being distracted by off field issues. As
Henry Ford said… ‘Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress;
working together is success.’ We all want the same thing so sit down and sort
it out and let’s get back to helping our club be all it can be.
Disunited we can do so little; united we can do so
much.
