Long term Celtic blogger Paul 67 has described the Champions League exit to Cluj as unacceptable.
Celtic Quick News has long been regarded as having a very close relationship with the Celtic boardroom with silver linings applied to the bleakest of results.
Blame is almost always laid at the door of team management or players failing to perform with questioning of the club’s executive rarely countered.
The decision to play Callum McGregor out of position is dissected in the review of last night’s 4-3 defeat but tellingly it also highlights a ‘strategic planning failure’ which can only be attributed to the club directors:
Those who said we were going backwards with Neil are justifiably pointing to this and saying “Told you so”, and that decision sits with our board. Unlike some, I will tell you when they do well, and they often do, a historic treble, treble, is proof, but we were knocked out of the Champions League by a team with a tiny fraction of our budget, due to a strategic planning failure to be ready for this day. After last night, I have no counter argument. This feels as low a point as Bratislava. It cannot be acceptable.
The warning signs were sent out from Athens a year ago when the team failed with the defence looking vulnerable. Mikael Lustig and Kieran Tierney have moved on from the club while Dedryck Boyata watched the defeat to AEK from his armchair.
Celtic had a year of ‘strategic planning’ for this season’s qualifiers but failed to fill key positions in the team while negotiating for six weeks to get a record transfer fee for Kieran Tierney.
Apart from a brief exchange in a car park on the day that Brendan Rodgers left the only interviews given by Peter Lawwell this year were announcing the offer to Neil Lennon at Hampden followed by the formal introduction of the Irishman as permanent manager.
