Yet again, we are looking at a ‘coulda, woulda shoulda’ type scenario.
After the away game against Maribor, I felt that they were a decent team but didn’t really offer much of a threat. We had a header cleared off the line twice as well as scoring a vital away goal and avoiding defeat.
So it was just a case of bringing the opposition to Glasgow and blowing them off the pitch with the famous Celtic crowd. The crowd that so many of world footballs top names have been complimentary of.
Before the game, the atmosphere was building up quite nicely but after about 10 minutes it seemed that it was our players who were overwhelmed by the occasion. Too often in the opening stages of the match, our players were misplacing passes and were making a silly amount of unforced errors.
Why is that though? Most of them have played at Celtic Park before, some have played in World Cups, some have European experience. My guess is that either they’ve looked at Maribor last week and thought that last night was going to be a walk over.
The other possibility is that they’ve ‘bottled it’ as they’ve allowed the importance of the occasion to get to them.
There’s obviously a lot of reasons as to why we failed to qualify last night. Part of me questioned the substitutions.
The first change was to remove Beram Kayal for Kris Commons. At that stage in the game, we were already through so why, when the only task of the night was to not concede a goal, would you bring on an attacking player in place of a defensive one?
Later in the game, Mikael Lustig was taken off and replaced by Derk Boerrigter. I’ve since been told that Lustig had an injury. If that was the case, why not bring on another defensive player ? Surely Nir Bitton or Jason Denayer would have been the better option?
I know that it’s very easy to look back after the event and question these sort of decisions but most people round about me in the stand were pretty baffled by it when the change was made.
Another question that I have asked for quite a long time is that of Charlie Mulgrew. On twitter last night, I noticed a lot of people saying that it’s time for him to go as they don’t feel he’s good enough. I don’t agree, I’ve made the point on several occasions that he won Player of the Year while playing at centre half so why on earth does he not play there?
Tony Stokes is another who is given some criticism for his lack of goals in European competition. Perhaps he’s not good enough but anyone who has been watching him over the years will know that he’s nowhere near the same player when he’s used as a lone striker.
Georgios Samaras and Gary Hooper were decent enough playing the lone striker role for us in the past so what did we do? Of course, our penny pinching policies at the club allowed them to move on and never be replaced. I’m not saying for a minute that I think both of these guys should have been kept at all cost but they should have been replaced.
Some of the blame for last night must lie with the manager for a few of the decisions that I’ve highlighted and also with the players for not doing the basic things during the game.
But I’m now of the opinion that it’s time for a change of personnel in the boardroom or at the very least, it’s time for a change of transfer policy.
In August 2010, Aiden McGeady left us for a fee of £9.5million. After him, Gary Hooper, Victor Wanyama, Fraser Forster to name a few have gone. There’s been over £60 million generated in transfer fees. The club has played in the Champions League and earned a lot of money from that.
If we genuinely can’t afford to reinvest this in the squad, then why not ? Where is the money going? Is the club being run poorly if we can’t afford replacements for the players who have gone?
If it is the case that we can’t afford the transfer fees or wages of a decent standard of player, what is Celtic in say the year 2020 going to be like?
In the last 10 years or so, we’ve gone from a European final to losing matches against two very average teams in Legia and Maribor.
The starting 11 in Seville was Douglas, Balde, Mjallby, Valgaeren, Agathe, Lennon, Lambert, Petrov, Thompson, Sutton & Larsson.
The starting 11 last night was Gordon, Ambrose, Izaguirre, Mulgrew, Lustig, Van Dijk, McGregor, Johansen, Stokes, Kayal & Berget.
Take a few minutes to compare the two teams and see how far back we’ve gone since 2003. Why did our club not build on that success?
What has happened to our club? One thing is for sure, football goes in cycles of good and bad, we will improve again at some point but can the current board and manager give us the improvements that we need?
It’s too early to say if the manager is good enough or not but unless he has a plan B in place, we’re going to struggle.
Yes the game v Dundee Utd on flag day was great. It’s probably the best Celtic performance in a wee while but that style of football away from home during a Scottish winter is never going to happen so we have to adjust to the opposition.
The fans have more than did their bit to back the club- when will we feel that the team on the park is getting the same backing from the board?
Recent events have pushed the patience of the Celtic support to the brink, a response on the park is urgently required, not spin and excuses that insult our intelligence.
