Today we saw the full scale consequences of failure at every level.
Let’s start with the manager.
Today, he’s lost a match against a team with ten men because his tactical system did not adapt to take advantage of that situation.
I’ve been a supporter of Ronny Deila, but it has become increasingly clear over the past few weeks that he simply does not belong at Celtic Park, if we’re to move forward and be the club the supporters want.
There is no prospect of him leaving any time soon though. He has the backing of the other person most to blame for this shambles.
And yes, I mean Lawwell, who has more defenders and fans amongst our support than is rational or logical.
Mark my words, under his “stewardship” we’re going to blow the epochal opportunity we had to dominate this game in Scotland for a generation.
We’re now in serious peril. Those waiting for the signs of life, of an improvement in the team’s performances, or from the manager … how much longer do you want to wait?
I listened to Deila’s comments over the last couple of days, about not losing sleep over our best players being sold. I found them staggering, and appalling, and the kind of thinking that belongs in the Norwegian league. They were not fitting of a manager of Celtic. That he had identified Nadir Ciftci as the number one target in the forwards position over the summer shows exactly how limited his thinking is, and how low we now set the bar.
We are an SPL team now.
Get used to it, because unless things change – radically – at every level of our club that’s not going to get any better.
We had better stop daydreaming about ten in a row.
We’re simply not going to get there, because sooner or later – and probably sooner – someone is going to put together a decent enough team and a good enough run of form to take the league flag away from us.
Some on other forums are already expressing their pleasure at us “having a challenger at last.”
I’ve never heard such defeatist garbage in my life.
For the record, I don’t want a challenger.
I want us to win every game.
By a hatful of goals.
It’s an excuse for an unacceptable display and a shocking defeat, and it’s a dreadful excuse as that.
Now, as a consequence of our constant backward drift a challenge is exactly what we do have … and we have that because we’ve allowed ourselves to be stripped to the bone, shorn of ambition and bereft of quality.
Today I watched as the same mistakes we’ve been making for weeks were repeated over and over and over again.
Our full backs, leaving their natural positions when the opposition has the ball, retreating into the penalty area, leaving the wings exposed and allowing wingers to whip the ball in.
Corner kicks where we mark zonally and leave men to get free headers.
An approach to set pieces in general which shows no signs of improving, because there’s no sign of it changing.
And the formation … one up front in Scotland. Shameful.
Tonight there’s going to be a lot of “oh stop moaning and get behind the team” and nonsense like “one bad result, these things happen …” getting flung about.
Keep those sentiments. I don’t want to hear them.
Anyone who thinks criticism is wrong at a time like this – when the whole club is going backwards – is a mug.
The inflexibility that got us here is now eating away at every single part of the club.
The board is wedded to downsizing.
The manager is wedded to the same, and to a tactical plan which is grossly unsuited to Scotland and is beginning to look cowardly, designed not to lose rather than to press teams and go for the throat.
A lot of our fans are equally stuck in an imagination free zone where they can’t even envisage better and are willing to settle for this dreck.
The infuriating thing is that, as I keep on saying, we do have the basis of a good team here.
But we have a CEO who will sell any player for whom we receive a good offer, a manager who’s happy to go right along with that and a playing system that is becoming a bad joke.
This is a bad spot we’re in here.
This wasn’t just one bad result.
Today, every weakness at Celtic Park, from the boardroom to the boot room, has been exposed in appalling fashion.
One good thing today; Leigh Griffiths. What a tryer.
What a player for the team.
He deserves better than to be stranded in a playing system that puts all this weight on him.
Things are not going to get any better.
Thursday is going to be a hard night, and if I might make a prediction it’s going to be an embarrassing one where every deficiency we just saw is going to be exposed even more horribly against the best team we’ve faced this season.
We are in a bad, bad spot right now.
Be under no illusions about that at all.
lol
james you are entitled to your opinion. i for one will not be listening ..
no he is right Deila must go and significant immediate change needs to happen our club is going backwards. a half full stadium makes no business sense so selling the best is a fools economy it deprives us of being at the top table of football and income.
as a life long fan and season ticket holder i have never seen a celtic manager playing one up front against mediocre opposition.
i take it by your comment your satisfied with whats going on at parkhead?
Couldnt agree more with every single word of this article. As long as we have deluded fans accepting these half hearted displays, CFC will continue to demise. If you are a true fan, you need to open your eyes and show you give a fuck about what is going on here. Any idiot can see there is something much much deeper wrong here at Celtic when clubs like Malmo with less than half our resources can come back from a pumping to stop us qualifiying for the CL and teams like Aberdeen and Hearts and previously Dundee United have a real sense of belief, not only that they can beat us on the day after going a goal down, but believe they will win the SPL. What does it take before we get a sense of urgency and desire to give our club a much needed kick up the arse? Will they wait until Aberdeen win the league? Or has their sense of support of the club fallen to a level where they longer believe we are a bigger club than the likes of Aberdeen and Malmo? Im tired of excuses. Teams like Malmo and Aberdeen dont have as much money as us, so we cant blame financial differences and NL, was able to get us to the last 16 agaisnt teams with much more money. Aberdeen and Malmo dont have better players than us, so we cant blame that. We have lost some players but we have also aquired some very good ones annd still have a bigger squad than these teams so again we cant blame this. It should be very apparent to anyone watching Celtic regularly that this Celtic team lack a something deeper, they lack the character of winners and that is shown quite clearly when instead of grabbing a last minute goal, to win an important game, we infact lose late goals in such games. We are no longer a club that is motivated to win, at least not as much as we used to be. Why i ask myself? Perhaps it something to do with Rangers leaving that Celtic have lost that winning desire? But that should only apply to the SPL and yet we now also see the same lack of desire to win in Europe too. So it cant be much to do with this. Perhaps then it is the endless rebuilding of a team after some parasitic EPL minow team tears the heart out our team by buying our best players every year? But surely that is part of the game for and every club and such we should be able to cope with that, at least when it comes to facing clubs in the SPL and teams like Malmo. So again, not an excuse. Its a sad state of affairs that instead of singing about achieving 10 in a row, we are now talking about title challenges before Rangers even return to the SPL. The harsh reality is this is a club now devoid of motivation. They have had things too easy and become too complacent. From the boardroam to the manager and the players, their is sense of selfish lazyness. On the other side of Glasgow, the opposite is happening. There they have had a hard time. Thrown into the pitts of the lower leagues,they have had to battle their way back up and when they get back to the SPL, I fear they will have a never say die battle hardened character. We should be winning the treble or double as a minimum every year in their absence and by the time they come back we should have build up a team and a financiala reserve from Europe, that regarless of their character, they just wont have enough to beat us. As it is, half the SPL now fancy their chances to win the league and that tells us all we need to know about this current Celtic team. Im sick of fans saying we need to stop being negative and getn behind the team but getn behind the team does NOT mean accepting bullshit excuses for what is clearly lazyness and lack of desire to win! If Celtic got beat 10 nil today but every player played their heart out, I would not be moaning at the team. But when your team lack spirit, there needs to be IMMEDIATE and major changes. Ronny is the man in charge of driving this team and he must take most of the blame. If he cant get his team up to finish off teams like Malmo for a CL spot and if he cant get the team fired up to beat SPL teams who are going about bragging they can win the league, then he must go. I like him and I like his style of football but its not enough. First and foremost, our manager must have fire in his belly and he must be able to build motivate and pick a team every weak that will be give its all in every game.
When was the last time you can remember the midfield controlling a game that stopped the retreating defence being put under so much pressure? They have a complete inability to hold and retain the ball never mind create openings. Malmo told us how they would beat us with a press and run game , they told us and still did this and beat us. Aberdeen did the same today and it’s gonna be how teams like Killie , Inverness and the rest will play us in the weeks and monts to come. I doubt the manager and his coaching team will know how to change things to stop this. Rogic and Bitton are the established midfield now where as they were bit part players previously. How are they good enough now? Simple , downsizing and they’re not. Griffiths must be thinking what have I got to do to get some decent service and Ciftci must simply be thinking what am I actually meant to do? Even Craig Gordon’s great form and judgement is beginning to be eroded. How to stop this malaise? management , tactics and board need to be looked at long and hard.
Chill mate, we will win the league and today was a great advert for the Scottish game, sure we are all dissappointed, but we need the challenge, under no illusions as to where we are right now, but key players missing today and Ajax next week, lets talk after that please, its the acid test.
why is kris commons the only one with a football brain sitting on the bench
It breaks my heart to say it but that is exactly what i was thinking. No tactics at all. When your opponents have man sent off why would you take off an injured full back and send on effe. Send on an attacker or at least an attacking midfielder and you change the dynamics of the game but? taxi for Delia?
They player need a good boot in the arse
I agree deila must now go this is not a club in progress its a club in decline Lennon and others left because decision on selling players and signings were taken without his involvement sadly Deila is not brave enough to stand up he can’t as he’s in a job which is out of his depth.. Fans who say give him time should look at where we are. As a life long celtic fan and season ticket holder Ive never seen a celtic team play one up front against scottish teams and indeed as we did against a team mid table in the icelandic league.
the players bemoan the training is poor celtic have no fight and thats very evident. Most of all Delias tactics and decision making are awful.. Selling key players doesn’t help and I don’t support the view that we need to sell players due to being in the SPL. a half empty stadium makes no business sense. excuses used to exempt the board and diela form criticism over another European exit do not stack up. the argue were are a champions league team with a champions league manager playing in a port SPL with no competition ( collins eat your words after today) seven been beaten three times in the champions league qualifiers in the last 2 years all by teams with less than half our resources
its time for change or we won’t need to worry about champions league next year as we may not win the league with this manager and depressive decline within the team. there is no pride no spirit but worse of all no sense of shame.
dump Diela Collins and Co make Scot Brown the Player manager for the rest of the season with some help from an experienced manager as an advisor, maybe Strachan might do this as he won’t have much to do in the future
I totally agree with you James.
These twats that find this acceptable are seriously delusional. It is now becoming alarming that the path the board have taken regarding the manager, is now seriously damaging the club and this past years financial losses will be chicken feed in comparison to what is ahead.
Time for Deila to go, in fact he should have been removed before the start of this season.
A thought to all those that delight ( it has been a delight) in Sevco woes instead of being critical at what we are watching week in week out. Performances are dire and that is soley the responsibility of a man that should have never been given the gig in the first place.
“A thought those who delight in sevcos woes”. These forums specialise in delisting at sevcos woes. They spend more time reporting on the latest board room news from go an and ignoring the chaos unfolding at our own club. I’ve been criticised in here loads of times for saying this. Suddenly now, we have s minor crisis unfolding….possibly into s major one. I got one hope we don’t get drawn with them any time soon because they WILL smash us.
Ummm so you thought that the best reward for a manager who delivered the double in his first year … Deserved his P45 before a ball had been kicked ???!
Hear hear and HAIL HAIL.
I know we should be faithful through and through over and over but does that mean we should accept second best and dross. We have constant player swapping in a system that doesn’t work. How many embarrassing games do you want to watch before accepting that we should be better than this. It’s obvious wee cannot do zonal marking so why stick with it? Playing one up front doesn’t make sense in the SPL. But ignoring all of that we have good players who have no drive, motivation and no heart. Being outplayed by Aberdeen with 10 men is frankly not good enough. I know instant reaction after a defeat is not the best thing to do but how many of these games do we have to take. We have been watching this for several seasons now. Do you want to lose the league this season before we wake up. Too late. We do not deserve this as fans.
Excellent Article and I concur with you that we are ashambles from top to bottom. The sad thing is nothing will be done to fix it as the board is in complete denial.
Defence is a shambles and it has cost us badly in Europe and now the league. I don’t like to single out individuals but some aren’t good enough. Can’t understand for the life of me why Commons can’t get a game. Losing faith in Ronnie and am not going to watch on Thursday as its my wife’s birthday and won’t let this team ruin it.
Totally agree not a celtic team that can be held to the name.
Delia is a joke of a manager,Celtic are a joke of a team in England.
I dread what may happen in Amsterdam,Ajax could win by at least 3 or 4 maybe more.
How this guy Ambrose even gets a bench spot amazes me,he is the ultimate liability,he wouldn’t even get subs place at Notts County,
Why is commons left on the bench is beyond me,I’m afraid it time to get rid of Delia,he is clearly not up to the job,I gave him the benifit of the doubt last season but after Europe performances and SPL as well this season,it’s time,before it’s too late.
Totally agree mate performances have bin poor apart ftom super leigh and nir bitton,stu armstrong.we have played 10 games or more and the defence has been a shambles from the start.we do have the making of a good team but tactics and decison making from ronny at times has been poor a mean boyata who a wouldnt give a game for the under 17’s never mind the first team and then ambrose for lustig ang blackett at left back not good enough
A disorganised team, we are woeful at defending corners and free kicks. Bogota lazy at tackling and posted missing in the centre of defence. 11 v 10 ideal opportunity for a player of commons calibre to spread the ball Very edgy come Thursday
worrying times indeed things have got to change,the manager sticking to his one up front policy for one celtic played and were famous for there flowing football,now the rest of the league have got their number.Wake up celtic we are beter than this
wake up celtic this is not acceptable
1 million % right James it takes me back to the bad old days of the eighties when we were at a all time bad team.no guts or flair or invention.we need a man who can motivate our players to the level we were at a few years ago.and we need another striker to help Griffiths.
Couldn’t agree more James and it has been coming for years..exactly why Neil Lennon felt he had to leave..no forward thinking and taking the fans for mugs..I’ve got 3 season books and just purchased 3 packages for the Europa League ..more the fool me. The boards attitude is we don’t need to spend money while they’re not there but that’s the attitude that will come back and haunt us..other teams like Aberdeen have hunger and desire while we stagnate..the majority of player we have in the park should be good enough but obviously the manager doesn’t have the tactical nouse to utilise this..I fear for the future..
Totally agree with everything James, Deila is clueless and if it as him who identified boyata as a player, that in my eyes is a sackable offence, boyata is the worst centre back i’ve ever seen in all the years i’ve supported Celtic, he is so bad he makes tebily look like puyol.
Everything needs to change but the priority is getting rid of Liewell !!!