So earlier today I decided to give a go to optimism and started to think about a title party in April. People get sick reading negative stuff.
Believe me when I tell you that I get heartily sick of writing it. Tonight, flying the flag seems miles distant as Aberdeen have closed the gap on us after a performance at home that was, to put it mildly, absolutely dire. Again.
There’s no further point in me laying out the reasons why the manager’s got to go. I think they ought to speak for themselves by now. There are too many games like tonight, even when we’ve managed to secure the three points.
Some people aren’t buying it. Some people won’t criticise and hate anyone who does. I’ve fallen out with more Celtic supporters in the last few months than I’ve argued with Sevco fans. I used to get very down about that, but I don’t any longer. There are people who think any criticism at all of Celtic makes you as bad as the hacks, and would turn you into an Enemy because you’re not a blind fool simply buying into “faithful through and through” without question.
Tonight I’m still a Celtic fan. I will be one tomorrow and until the day I die and not one single person’s opinion changes that. I don’t have to defend my views or explain them; I am sick and tired of it and I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m a blogger; giving my opinion isn’t just in the job description; it’s the job.
I don’t pretend to speak for anyone but myself, and I don’t think my opinion matters more than anyone else’s, Anyone who doesn’t like it is free not to read it. Nor do I have the answers to our problems, but then no-one is paying me a £1 million a year to provide them.
All this anger that’s floating about out there, some of it is grossly misdirected.
The dreck we’re watching right now isn’t the fault of those of us who can see the writing on the wall, but there comes a time when I have to wonder if those giving the manager and the board a human shield and trying to shout down the rest of us have to take some responsibility themselves.
Because nights like this happen because some people are content for them to.
Tonight I’m not pointing the finger at our manager. That result, that performance, didn’t change my view on him one iota because it’s pretty much set now. But to constantly blame him gives a convenient alibi for other people at Celtic, and tonight the players ought not to escape from their share of it.
They were appalling, almost to a man, failing to do even the simple things.
Leigh Griffiths seemed to pick up a knock towards the end of the first half, and I can’t have been alone with my heart in my mouth at that moment. If he got injured the trouble would start to pile up like a snowdrift, but even he wasn’t at the top of his game tonight.
Oddly enough, I thought one of our most solid performances came from Charlie Mulgrew, who ordinarily I would have balked at giving a jersey to. I’ll say one thing for him though; he gets this. He understands what Celtic is, what it ought to be. He fought for the cause. Other people, not so much. This is a team in need of some steel.
That was awful tonight, in so many ways and I’m more fed up than usual because had I not been trying to find something good to say today I might have seen it coming a mile away. Once again a team we routed earlier in the season came up against the same tactics and the same basic playing style; if they hadn’t learned from it they’d have deserved another hiding.
This can’t go on. It can’t be allowed to.
Parkhead looked like a graveyard tonight, and if the stay-away fans really are waiting on a team called Sevco then we’re in a worse state than we seem, because to renew season tickets for next season to watch that … it would be an act of self-harm. It would be madness.
Some will embrace it nonetheless, and I won’t even try to change their minds.