The Year of the Ox
Watching Alex Oxlade Chamberlain curl home that
exquisite winning goal against Livingston this week, made me think that this
gifted footballer might just be a difference maker as the season reaches the
decisive phase. Celtic have struggled at times to deal with teams who park the
bus and utilise a low block to frustrate them. The art of shooting from the edge
of the box seemed to have been somewhat forgotten this season as the antidote
to packed defences. The powerful Englishman is no stranger to shooting from
outside the box and has demonstrated his skill in this area on a few occasions
over the years. The other players’ reaction to his goal spoke volumes too.
There was relief that the game had been salvaged, but as they mobbed him, it
was obvious they were delighted to have a player of his calibre on their side.
Martin O’Neill has organised and motivated a squad
that was in honesty running on empty. His second stint at the helm this season
has seen 7 domestic matches, with 6 won and a draw at Tynecastle with ten men. It hasn’t always been pretty and there
have been some late, late heroics to win the games, but there is a feeling that
the squad will fight to the very end for the manager. He seems reasonably happy
with the business the club did in the transfer window and it has to be said
that the squad looks as if it has more depth now. Hopefully we see one or two
of our injured players back too as the spring weather arrives and the boss has
more options.
The mantra now is to win at all costs. An improving Kilmarnock
side will provide a stiff test for Celtic on the plastic pitch on Sunday. The
Hoops also need to start converting a higher percentage of their chances. In
the recent games with Dundee and Livingston, they had over twenty attempts at
goal in each game and still only managed to win them in stoppage time. With Adamu,
Cvancara, Iheanacho and Maeda all capable through the middle, O’Neill now has
more options up front than was the case. Hopefully that’ll pay dividends as the
heavy fixture list unfolds. Celtic now have 11 games in the next 4 weeks and
squad rotation will be needed. Every game becomes a must win when the league is
so tight, but there are more twists and turns to come in this fascinating
league season.
Hearts have improved as have Rangers but in truth
the competitive edge we all wanted to see in the SPFL has come about because of
a levelling down, not a levelling up. Celtic allowed a lot of firepower to
leave the club without adequate replacements being brought in. Key players were
injured and the squad depth and quality were proved inadequate. Brendan Rodgers
was dismissed, rightly or wrongly and the board sanctioned the hiring of a
manager who knew nothing about Scottish football and stuck dogmatically to his
3 at the back tactic, even when it was clear that Celtic didn’t have the
personnel for it and it wasn’t working. Wilfred Nancy was at Celtic Park for 33
days and oversaw the worst run of results in nearly 50 years. Six of his 8
games ended in defeat and 12 league points and a cup final were lost. Such was the
defensive chaos under the Frenchman, that Celtic conceded 18 goals in his 8
games in charge. They lost 15 goals in the previous 24 games. Celtic have lost
6 matches in the SPFL this season and 4 of them were lost in that mad month under
Nancy. We can but hope that we now have in the tank to recover from that
self-inflicted wound.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the sensible
thing to have done when Rodgers was fired would have been to leave Martin O’Neill
in charge for the rest of the season. That being said, he has steadied the ship
again and there is all to play for in the league and the cup. We may Ibrox on 2
consecutive weekends, but should Celtic hang in there in the SPFL, we have both
Hearts and Rangers at home after the split so all things are possible. New
players have arrived and will in time contribute more fully. If they are on
loan, then it is likely that they weren’t purchased outright because the new
manager arriving in June will doubtless want a say in who comes and who goes.
The wind of change is blowing through Scottish
football and I feel the Celtic side we see in July will be much changed from
the one we are backing now. Hatate and Maeda look likely to be moving on and
Schmeichel may decide that it’s time to hang up his gloves. Engels is
attracting interest too and we surely won’t resist another £25m bid for him in
the summer? The new boss will want a decent budget, and the fans will accept
players trying their luck elsewhere provided the revenue raised is spent on
replacements of a similar ability. We saw how the downsizing of the last year
left the team weaker and that cannot be allowed to happen again.
Before we even contemplate season 2026-27, there is still
much to fight for domestically this season. It remains to be seen if Oxlade
Chamberlain can reach anywhere near the levels he did at Arsenal or Liverpool.
If he can, then we’ll have quite a player on our hands. This is the business
end of the season; there is little room for error, but despite the trials,
tribulations and squabbles, we’re still in there swinging. We might still look
back on this topsy turvy season and remember it as a good one. With a bit of luck,
we might even recall it as the year of the ox.
