Chris Sutton isn’t giving Celtic a free pass for their Champions League humiliation to Atletico Madrid.
A year after signing off last season’s campaign with a 5-1 defeat in the Bernabeu Celtic were back across the city taking a 6-0 pasting.
Excuses can be offered up but there is no denying that the team and squad is far weaker than last season.
Celtic started 2023 with a nine point lead in the SPFL and were 12 ahead in early April before clinching the title in the second week of May.
Whether they could have signed players to make a mark in the Champions League is up for discussion but none of the seven summer signings were an upgrade on last season’s squad.
With Jota, Carl Starfelt and Aaron Mooy no longer around and injury ruling out Reo Hatate and Liel Abada the squad came up well short against Atletico.
This isn’t a squad, team or club that is progressing and developing with Sutton putting things bluntly to the decision makers in his Daily Record column:
Celtic knew the date of the first Champions League group matches in the second week of May when they won the title against Hearts at Tynecastle and guaranteed their place in them. That is four whole months. That Postecoglou team was building. They had their experiences of the first campaign and those that were staying could use them.
Those who were leaving needed to be replaced properly and strengthening was also needed because, having finished the campaign with two points last term, it was clear that even the side who ended that term required more furnishing. Instead, Celtic went backwards.
You can’t legislate for injuries to the likes of Cameron Carter-Vickers and Liel Abada, but even if those two had been available for Rotterdam, the squad on night one was still weaker than the one that finished last term’s campaign against Real in the Bernabeu. I’m going to repeat myself in one sense. That was unforgivable.
But I’m not going to keep repeating myself and neither should Celtic. This direction of travel has to stop. It has to be altered now. In fact, it should already be happening.
Rodgers is a quality manager. He’ll know what he needs and what he can expect to get on that recruitment front within the parameters of the club model.
As a club, Celtic have to be on that right now. I know the market is changeable and targets can alter, but Rodgers will have a grasp of what he wants and they need to be brought in either in January and on the first of June next year.
Celtic have to go into Champions League matches at full pelt. Not signing Luis Palma on the last days of a window and giving him about five training sessions before he’s herded onto a plane for Rotterdam to be flung in to start a game on MatchDay One.
The team has had to go through their development stage in the most cut-throat environment of the game and that’s not acceptable. Not when the whole club knew four months in advance that these games were coming.
Sutton concluded with a throwback to his playing days and a challenge to those currently in charge:
Celtic’s record in Europe in the five years or so before I signed was awful and we started badly losing to Bordeaux, yet we changed it.
We started winning games. Signings, belief. It just takes a spark, a result or two and it builds. But no-one gives it to you. You have to go and make it happen. And that goes for everyone at the club. From dressing room to boardroom.
Under Postecoglou signings were announced ahead of the January transfer window opening, if there are no deals announced before January 1 it looks like being a frustrating month for supporters looking for signs of progress and respectability in Europe.
Genuine question that I’ve asked before…Where or who are these “quality signings” that we miss out on?….Would Scotland be your preferred choice of League…??…Also…as I’ve said before…BR seems to have no say in who we sign…Just improve them is his task…What a feckin’ joke…The whole set up needs overhauled…but that ain’t gonny happen while the Lawwells are there.
Yes, which quality players have the SPL as a top destination?
…but same goes for the Saudi Pro League for example.
Of course, not on the same scale, but CFC would have to pay a premium in
wages to get a couple of quality players, but if they are in the 26-28 years range,
there could be some decent resale value 2 or 3 years later?
With his experience, BR knew what was coming – especially in the CL.
And that is why the normally very carefully guarded manager told a presser
that ‘he works with the players he’s given’.
He was ringing a big alarm bell that put distance between himself and the
quality and depth of the squad.
i.e. blame the Board when results are not as expected.
BR ain’t daft.
The other thing to remember is…Quality players are being scouted world wide by Clubs, who for a variety of reasons, would be a better bet than us…Sad..but true…Stephen Mc Gowan exposes our approach to signing players…including wages etc. Doesn’t make for good reading.
Lawwell (Jnr) – His signings record is utterly atrocious…
Worse than Daddy Lawwell – And that’s bloody well saying something !
Big Chris’s words will fall on stoney ground. The board couldn’t care less about success on the pitch, all they care about is screwing every last penny out of the fans with minimum outlay for players.
The fans are being treated like complete idiots by this board.
As long as the Desmonds and the Lawwells get their money humiliation on the pitch means absolutely nothing. You couldn’t mark their necks with a blowtorch.
Sack the board back the team.
What you need for success, in football, dare I say, among other things is continuity. You need to build on what you’ve got!
To be honest, the Board gave Ange his chance to make his mark in Europe, after he won the league in his first season!
But it was underwhelming, all in all, at the end.
So, although he won the Scottish treble in his second season and we had a really strong team on which to build for Europe, all the pieces were not in the correct place for it to happen!
Ange had found Europe not so easy and wanted to move on. The team needed a new manager, so the continuity, on which to build was gone!
And so, we are where we are.
That slice of luck that perhaps you were looking for just wasn’t there.
And so, we move on!
Surprised at Chris Sutton there and would have expected better.
More like jumping on the anti board bandwagon that the best part of our support want to sit upon, without any foresight or trust within the process involved.
Does it really stand up to scrutiny, when dissected upon what the CL squad was last season, to make the claim we are far weaker as a squad, so let’s blame the board for being the case?
Maybe jenz and abilgaard were so worthy of earning a contract with there contributions? Ange certainly didn’t think so, yet were the replacements of yuki and iwata any better? Again the decision of Ange?
Should the mourning of the decision be Rodgers to eliminate big Ben, Bernie, Mccarthy and Hako from last season CL squad, cause they provided so much to ourselves and still under contract?
Has Scales been such a disgraceful replacement for starfelt?
Have we strengthen in the CB position with rocki and largerman as back up CB currently, than yuki and Welsh at the end of last season?
Even mooy, who was hardly fit for our CL campaign last season, and really came to show his value to ourselves just before the World Cup, but more so after it in the 2nd half of the season?
So is it impossible for Holm and Paulo to follow suit in the same time line?
Already Paulo has given us more than mooy provided for ourselves last year imo.
So Jota and Maeda the preferred wide options under Ange.
The cheek of us to downgrade with going with Maeda and Ababa with the preferred option this year, and Palma a shocking replacement on Hako in terms of quality.
With Ababa getting promoted to starter instead of sub, means forrest and yang wouldn’t have been as strong down our right in the subs role?
Yet when injuries having such a huge impact upon our squad, let’s continue to make the younger players the scapegoats and the blame the board for doing so?
Have we missed out on transfer targets, due to not having a bigger wage budget in place?
Haven’t a clue myself, but handing out improved contracts to key players is certainly a step in the right direction now imo.
Possibly couldn’t get done quicker due to the departure of Ange and the uncertainty with players upon the arrival of Rodgers?
Plenty for supporters, including myself upon matters within the club, just don’t believe it goes as far as not backing Rodgers as of yet, will make a better assessment come the end of January?
Certainly not prepared to make scapegoats out of the younger players, as that is all I’m currently seeing with the anti board signing policy in play at the moment?
So wouldn’t it be far better from the likes of Sutton to assess weather there has been improvements upon the more established players this season than last season, to highlight where the improvements are required after 10 games at CL level, and under 2 different managers with different outlooks upon the game?
Course not, which isn’t so easy, but board bashing is?