The blame game was underway long before the final whistle blew tonight in Malmo.
Did anyone do themselves justice? Other than James Forrest I don’t think that there were any players that could have been satisfied with their performance.
The players that can normally be relied upon turned in performances way below par. Craig Gordon couldn’t get close to corners that landed in his six yard box, the normally composed Nir Bitton was fortunate to stay on the park before being substituted.
Leigh Griffiths could have been sent off for a shocking lapse in discipline in the first half, Stefan Johansen was made to look ordinary by someone that couldn’t get near a Celtic jersey last season
“Today we performed not even close to our best, we looked scared and uncomfortable on the ball,” Ronny Deila said. “We didn’t deserve to get there. This experience is very hard.”
It’s not hard to find fault in every area of the team, that criticism extends into the management and all the way to the top of the boardroom.
The heady days of beating Barcelona and reaching the last 16 of the Champions League are now grainy memories, few of those involved in that campaign are still around or likely to be back for another crack at the big prize.
By and large Celtic fans know the realities of modern day football finances. Competing with the European elite is a pipe-dream, there are over 20 English teams that can outspend the hoops when it comes to spending power.
Equally there are no sound reasons why Celtic should be losing out to the champions of Slovenia or Sweden.
The reality is that the club is sliding backwards, the title is likely to be won again but who would back Celtic to negotiate through next season’s Champions League qualifiers?
Saturday’s win at Dundee United provided some consolation. Tom Rogic, Scott Allan and Eoghan O’Connell showed promise. Without the finances of the Champions League it’s likely that more than Virgil van Dijk will be moved on.
The Europa League won’t provide any consolation, a half full stadium on a Thursday night will crystallise where the club currently stands.
Whether it’s on the park, in the dug-out or from the boardroom fresh ideas are urgently needed if the Champions League failures of 2014 and 2015 are to be avoided in 2016.
Pile in with your thoughts below.
Gutted. But in all honesty, just getting there would be our biggest win. We would get thumped in each and every game, just saves the embarrassment.
Also, is it just me that doesn’t rate Van Dijk? His European record is awful…
Red Card v Inter, Poor tonight, Conceded however many vs Salzburg, Inter etc, Maribor.
Blame game? There is no blame game! All you Deila lovers have been suckedin again. It is never his fault! Ask him, he’ll tell you!
He is incompetent. He has cost Celtic £20 million through arrogance, disrespect of other teams, and sheer incompetence. He should be fired immediately.
In fact, he should never have been at Celtic. Once again, our “take the cheap option” approach has cost us millions. Celtic are a laughing stock right now, and we have a brainless, useless manager to help us stay that way.
Collins isn’t any better. He disrespects everyone too. Yet he is a failed manager who thinks he knows it all too.
This pair should now be shown the door before we lose the league too.
Bigger name celtic managers with bigger budgets have failed here before. Sacking the manager is pointless because he’s doing a decent job and the next guy will have an even smaller budget with payoffs and unwanted players added to the fact it could destabilise enough that we could lose the league title.
What happens if he stays? We might lose the title anyway. His system is not working, there is no improvement over last year. He talks a great game but can’t get the team to lay as a unit. He is an experiment that has gone wrong.
Joe
Putting the boot in as usual, Celtic got beat 6-2 by Falkirk, 8 of them we’re Lisbon Lions.
Euopa league it is, I’ll be at all the home games.
Glasgow Celtic 1888 UNBROKEN
HH
Not good enough tonight, we are all hurting and it seems like history repeats it’s self no matter the circumstances. Our ventures in Europe have been punctuated by many shameful performances and the occasional run which makes us all proud. Keep the faith, Hail Hail….
Criticism of Gordon a bit harsh he kept us in it at times. The rest of them bar Forrest where rotten. Really disappointed was sure we’d crack it this year.
It took Lennon his 3rd crack to get us to the group stage maybe some consolation in that, We are still a young team without a lot of experience at that level.
Moving forward the boards “strategy” needs tweaking is there much point in buying a guy for 2million paying his wages for 2 yr say 1.5m selling him for 10m makes u 6.5m which gets spent on another 2 players and if yer lucky 1 becomes a 10m sale again. Take some of the profit and get a top player tied down for 4 or 5 yrs. Seriously would it not be better to get vvd on a new deal than buying cifti, Allan, Bangura, pukki, scepovic that would have been enough cash easily.
Could we also scout a scout who could scout a striker? Griffiths landed on our lap from our league Cifti is still a gamble and is looking more pukki than Lasson at the minute and the list of strikers thru the door at a 2m plus loss every year is bleeding us dry.
Difficult to see how we move on from here given the constraints of where we play & the fact that we seem to be bringing in players in the hope that we can give them a bit of exposure & move them on before their contract expires. This year its Van Dijk, next year it will be Bitton & Johansen. The year after, if all goes to plan, it will be someone else.
We need to pick sum to keep and fund it by selling others. Could jo ledley, Hooper maybe even wanyama or samara have been tempted to stay with a better deal. Just 1 of them could have made the difference and the experience they would have shared with the rest of the team.
oh dear oh dear.. who can we blame. listened to n lennon on setanta say he left the club as the board would not spend the money and they sold the team he built.. lawwell is is the man to blame get him out asap..
James Forrest…??? You’re definitely having a laugh. For 5 mins maybe? Then what…? Tackle? Anywhere? Anytime? Track back..?Don’t think so. Luxury we can’t afford, likewise , golden boy, Johansen. However, only two among a team of donkeys !
I’m so fkng pissed at this team I’ve followed for 55 yrs….
What’s our shout…. ” C’mon the… Oooops ?
Quite frankly VVD couldn’t give a shit anymore. Boyata hasn’t the brain to defend and understand the game at the Champions League level so once again we start a season leaking goals. I should assume that next season will be the same.?
The crux of it is we played two players at the back who couldn’t catch at either Manchester club. Boyata spent last season on loan at Bolton and previous to that hardly kicked a ball, young Janko never started a game for the Old Trafford club. There needs to be an old head in that back four to settle the youngsters… and Charlie Mulgrew isn’t it!!
Tactically we needed to be more attack minded so Mulgrew was not the right option. Malmo are slow at the back and pace on both wings would have pegged them back. Izaguirre may be a bombscare at the back at times but going forward that would have been two wings with pace… puts a whole different complexity on the game.
You can point fingers, wail and gnash teeth but when you consider that QPR earned more in tv money last year than our overall turnover it tells you a story. We can barely compete with Championship clubs for wages and transfer fees! Our financial make up is such that we live within our means which means we can’t compete at a higher level.
Yet despite our wage bill being several times that of Malmo’s we couldn’t get the job done. Why? Who knows, a bit of luck here and there and it was a different story. Nothing wrong with that goal… Celtic were in the ascendancy. That said, no excuses, it was not good enough but is it the end of the world? No!! No Champions League but lets be honest here, this is as good a chance to improve co-efficent than the Champions League given our frailties.
We either accept we are a Europa League club or there has to be significant investment from our owners, over to you Mr Desmond!
Fact is the diabolical tactic of zonel marking is a farce. If u man mark then u can stop these runs into the 6 yard area. So tactical mistake by the coaches!
Ref? Yes let’s blame the ref for an almighty and horrendous mistake at a crucial time In the game! Boyata can’t pass a ball. Mulgrew should never be at Celtic.
The board? No ambition beyond a balance sheet!! Lawwell should be held responsible for this result along side the coaches!
Spot on bud zones don’t score goals.
Keith.
Could be worse,
Could be a zombie,
HH
This is not time for the blame game but for the truth game. Peter Lawell has successfully reduced the cost of playing staff and support staff. Fact, just look at the accounts. As part of this financial strategy, he brought in an inexperienced manager, maybe as a cheap option or maybe as a bold and brave move in an attempt to move the club forward. I think it was the latter. It is also fact that the team have yet again failed to qualify for 2 seasons in a row for CL football. The team RD inherited had won the league under Lennon by a margin of 29 points. The team had qualified for the CL in the previous 2 years. RD with the assistance of the cost cutting and asset striping by PL has managed to almost erase any memory of success. His team looks lost of ideas and they can’t seem to move the ball quickly enough to unsettle the opposition. He has failed to get the team motivated, dis splined or organised for matches that really matter, so as a coach he has failed. That is not blame, that unfortunately is fact.
Hi
Just wanted to chip in ….even the title of the article offers us a choice in how to approach this juncture. As a club we should have dignity in defeat – I’m glad we seem to have tonight and Bitton is man enough to say it wasnt about the goal/penalty decision. This Malmo side comfortably thumped a Salzburg team twice, who destroyed us recently, so we are in a process of rebuilding and we will soon see our limit if we have not done so already. We will have players like VVD and hopefully more like him for 1-3 years, then we will need to understand our need to acquire, improve and on-sell. Ronnie is a realist and is trying to bring us there, Lenny left knowing this type of exit was guaranteed on his horizon without an endless transfer kitty. I hope we can have faith to continue on the road to become a sound football model, academy, and club worthy of our own place and status in Europe. If Ajax can produce so many on to the top of the European stages, why couldn’t we?
Maybe it’s time to acknowledge the “Blame game” doesn’t serve us or Scottish football, and assumes an arrogance that we are superior, when we very clearly are not. If Celtic carry the flag for Scottish football, surely its time for us to recognise that our model is flawed? What do we stand to lose by addressing this? Sponsors used to be the old excuse…………if we pass the hat round the bus we could nearly collect as much and self sponsor!!
Hail Hail and I hope we are brave enough to put the whining press in their place, admit we are not nearly as far along as we need to be, and address our shortcomings.
The comentator’s mate made it easy for us – start with Zonal marking learning. All of our defense needs to improve again. Boyata/Janko etc have a path to follow to improve themselves and their value. How could we let VVD and Boyata be beat to the ball at Corners. Set pieces ought to be our preference.
It will cause short term pressure for Ronnie but ultimately take pressure off them and give them another season to bed in the new guys and improve.
Hail hail and goo dluck to Malmo – that was another accomplished perfomance, even though their coach is a …….
Team had no bottle the board don’t care as long as they get money in there bank .the players
Well that’s a different story to good players don’t come bad over night but after what was in paper all week you would think they would put up a fight ..
Defence it’s a joke need to spend at least 8m on it the players that came in to defence try
But we’re out of there depth don’t start about James Forrest the lad is in his twenty he walks back
When loosing ball if he can’t beat other young men his age and run well sell him he give 55/percent it’s one thing beating Scottish team other beating Europe team witch Celtic can’t
And they will loose in Europe league as well because they have no BOTTEL
Let me ask you all this.
If you had a choice would you take winning the league or qualifying for the champions league?
I would take the league to make it five in a row.
We are not champions league material.
Ronnie will get it right.
Let’s get behind the manager and players.
Win,lose or draw.!
Can accept any result so long as the team does their best. That was a lazy, disinterested unmotivated display lacking any self belief, desire and resiliance. Absolutely disgusted by the whole team. I wouldnt pay any of them any more than the minimum wage for the rest of the season.
I can understand the gloom & doom to a certain extent. It is most unfortunate that the the whole team failed to perform on such an important night, This happens in football, any of us that have played in the game know this. You get away with 2 or 3 players under performing but not the whole team, and certainly not at this level.
I firmly believe if we had played to our potential we would have achieved the right result, The players & managers have held their hands up, at least they have been honest, they haven’t tried to hide, they are as disappointed as the fans.
What I cannot understand is the down beaten comments about the Europa League. At least we are still in Europe. The young team we have will continue to gain experience in this competition. Teams like Sevilla, last year’s winners, wouldn’t demean the competition, neither should we. However as a support we have to face facts, we do not earn big money from TV, so any ideas that we will make a £4-5m signing are way off the mark.
Neil Lennon left because he knew the strategy the club was taking, and lets be honest he signed a few duds (Pukki, Balde, Boerrigter, amongst others), every signing is a risk. Deila has been brought to Celtic in an attempt to bring more youth through, as that is his forte. Remember he is only 39 a very young manager who is always learning. We do have a young squad and if we can keep the majority together for a longer period then who knows.
I would still rather compete in the Europa League than no European competition at all.
Football is all about opinions and many of us have different views on the game and how it should be played.
I feel I’m realistic where our standing in the game worldwide is, and whilst I’ll accept Europa League over Champions League for another season that doesn’t mean that Ronnie & team are still not trying to achieve that goal. He’s right you learn more from mistakes, I’m sure the management team & players will have an inquest to see where it all went wrong.
As the song says, Faithful through and through, lets get behind them.
we need a captain to lead by example like mcneil like mcstay