Whether they are called youth, development or reserves there are two expectations at Celtic. Winning and producing players.
Victories and trophies are accepted as par for the course, defeats raises eyebrows and sets tongues wagging.
Every coach and player at Celtic is familiar with the demands, it comes with the territory just like opponents finding something extra in their performance knowing that a win over Celtic is more noticed than half a dozen other victories.
On Monday Celtic lost 4-3 at St Mirren with the title already won by Aberdeen. The fixture provided Tom Rogic and Charlie Mulgrew with game time but the defeat hurt.
After losing two goals within ten minutes Celtic recovered to go 3-2 in front midway through the second half. Losing the match 4-3 cut through Stevie Frail and the coaching team.
Four days earlier the u-20 side had turned on the style to beat Hibs 6-0 in the semi-final of the SFA Youth Cup. At Paisley on Monday there were just three survivors from the team that beat Hibs but the jersey, demands and expectations were the same.
The result and performance was different, after the match, ‘meaningless’ in many ways, Frail was brutal and to the point as he raked over 90 minutes that no-one had anticipated.
“It’s back to the argument of winning games at this level,” the development team coach said as he surveyed the scene at St Mirren Park. “Our job is to develop players, we want to win games, that should never be in question although it’s not the be all and end all for us as an academy. We want to win games playing the right way.
“In the last game against Hibs, the full 90 minutes was about how to win matches and develop players at the same time. The level of performance was everything that we work for throughout the week. We shouldn’t be embarrassed about trying to win games and winning in the right manner.
“I hate being harsh on the players, they have had a lot of games recently, a lot of big games. Jamie McCart and Fiacre Kelleher (central defensive partnership) have been excellent, they kept a clean sheet over 120 minutes away to Manchester City, but the reality is that if that had been a first team game then it just wasn’t good enough.”
Looking at how Celtic managed to lose from a winning position Frail added: “When you haven’t played well but get back into it, when you get 3-2 in front, you want to see the game out. To lose two late goals was incredible. At 3-2 we looked like we’d go on to score a few more. It was a poor night, a poor performance.
“Whoever plays on Thursday (against Kilmarnock at Lennoxtown) will know what is expected. I put myself in their position, when I was a young boy you can be frightened not to make a mistake but we try not to have that.
“Before the match we saw that it was a young St Mirren team and we didn’t want to give them any encouragement but we were 2-0 down after eight minutes.
“It was insipid and without purpose, if you go into any game without purpose you won’t win- especially at Celtic where teams always raise their game. It was a poor night for everybody.
“Things happened that we’ve not seen for a while, you get that with young players, they can be very up and down but we need to do better, we need to be better regardless of who is in our team.”
