It aint over until the fat lady sings and I can’t hear any fat woman singing so it’s not over. Far from it.
Now, since the carry on v Hearts, I have read and listened to all sorts of opinion on it. As always with my blogs, I’m trying to give my opinion and hopefully get some feedback from the readers.
There seems to be a bit of a split amongst our board as to who is fault. Is it Neil Lennon because of the tactics and the fact that our team combinations are constantly changing?
Is it the boards fault for not bringing in the players that the manager wanted ?
Does someone else behind the scenes identify new signings and it’s just up the Neil Lennon to make a team out of them?
Are the players themselves at fault for not doing what they are paid massive amounts of money to do – win football matches?
If anyone has read my pieces on this site before, you will know by now that I am just a fan with an opinion, I am no football expert (that may be obvious by now). I know very little about what happens in the board room and I know nothing about how to run a football club.
One thing that I do know is that our club have not won the league for the past three seasons and based on the start of this season, it could easily be four years. That is not good enough.
I’ve mentioned a few possible reasons for this above which I would like to examine.
Is the boss and his tactics at fault? Possibly. I heard a fact recently that said every match that Gary Hooper and Anthony Stokes have played in together, is matches that we have won.
I tend to think that this is because they have been playing together for a while and some players just seem to click and do well together. These guys are a good example of two players who click and play well together.
The burning question for me is why do they not play together more often? Hooper tends to start but the boss doesn’t fancy Stokes in the big games. I know it’s up to the manager to make his own decisions but this is one that I’d like to have an explanation of.
For most of the season, both of these guys have been fit so are able to play together.
A different thing is the amount of defensive partnerships; we’ve already had Emilio Izaguirre, Kelvin Wilson, Glenn Loovens, Mark Wilson and Cha Du-Ri out injured this season so that surely is not someone’s fault. That’s just bad luck. The same applies to the middle of the park, plenty of injuries so nobody at fault for those.
Or is there something wrong that’s causing the injuries? Are the facilities at Lennoxtown not being utilised correctly? Is there something wrong with the training regime or is it the massive amount of pre season matches and the amount of pre season travelling that has caused some players to lose their fitness?
I am no medical expert so couldn’t yes or no to that, maybe someone reading knows better and could give an answer?
This question moves me on to my next point, are the board at fault? I guess it’s difficult to answer but at the end of the day, the board run the club and the club isn’t doing very well, so they, in my mind at least, have to take some responsibility.
When accepting the pre season games, were the board just looking at cash and not thinking whether or not it was going to be of any benefit to the team? If so, that is the board who are at fault but how else do they make cash? Merchandising and ticket sales are our real source of income so is there an alternative? If so, what do you think that alternative is?
There are a few players who are not playing anywhere near their best, I think Kris Commons is the one who stands out there, he had a great season (or a part season with us) so what has happened with him?
He’s been injured but for me, not doing enough to get himself back in the team.
The reason I say that is because when he looked a bit over weight at the start of the season we heard on twitter that he was off to play golf in Spain or Portugal.
If he wasn’t fit enough to play football then he should have been back at the gym to get himself fit and ready for playing football again.
Maybe I am being harsh there but I just don’t think it’s the correct attitude from a player who is at a team with a view of winning something.
Ok, I think that’s maybe enough of the doom and gloom. I would like to think that our boss does have enough in him to turn things around. It was only a few months ago that we were all laughing at Ally McCoist and calling him the fat Paul Le Guen and making bets with mates as to how long he would last before getting the bullet at Ibrox.
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Sorry Joe while injuries to players is always down to luck. I DO blame Lennon for his lack of foresight in failing to secure the obviously needed defenders we required. We had NO cover at all for Izzy while it was abundantly clear that Loovens et al were badly lacking.
I can’t accept that “someone” else is buying players on foisting them on the manager unless youth level.
As for not signing players the manager wants…no manager gets EVERY top target. Lennon definitely wanted Murphy who was crap, he has hung his cap on Forster who is average, Kelvin Wilson who still has a lot to prove yet, Commons was excellent but this year has been poor.
I didn’t want Lennon as manager, thought it was a bad mistake, cheap option and nothing has since happened to change my mind. For me Lennon was appointed to appease the fans as we sold Boruc & McGeady a new manager without his Celtic connections would have been hounded for this and then failure to win the title, shambles in Europe….Nope Lennon has been given more than enough chances. No signs of improvement for me and right now no chance of taking the title back which is disgraceful.
He was part of Mowbray’s awful management team and SHOULD have been binned with the rest. We reap what we sow…..From the top down, heads should be rolling. IF we get a quality up & coming manager in NOW we might be able to salvage the season if not we throw another title away.
Every game Celtic play at the moment is the most important for decades, it seems. Don’t know how true all of this is but for Neil Lennon Saturday is the most important of his career as Celtic manager. Anything other than a win will result in the game being his last as manager. I sincerely hope that this is not the case. A draw or defeat will see Neil walk (i.e ‘mutually consented’). If we are any more than 10 beind Rangers after the weekend it is back to the drawing board.
But I think he will live to fight another day.
0-3 Celtic. Then the next game is the most important in his career…one more defeat before the new year and we will be looking for a new manager.