A Good Win That Changes Nothing

Football fans are fickle. That’s not news.

Football bloggers, by our very nature, sometimes appear more fickle than most.

Good results have us over the moon. Bad ones make us crazy.

In spite of this I try – I really do – to remain focussed on the stuff that matters, and not to get carried away and give in to knee jerk reactions and spur of the moment rants.

Some will doubtless be expecting some backtracking today, as a consequence of yesterday’s result. I am pleased about that result and delighted that it moves us further ahead of McInnes and Aberdeen in the title race. The performance was very decent, and Kris Commons showed that whatever his issues may be with the backroom team he will give it all for the jersey; the most you can ask of any footballer and one of the reasons Kris has so many fans.

But knee jerk reactions can follow good games as much as bad ones.

I remain concerned, and I remain unconvinced by the manager, and without wanting to bring everyone down on what’s overall a pretty good day, I’m going to briefly outline why.

First, we beat easily one of the most disorganised and demoralised teams ever to play in the Scottish top flight. Dundee Utd really are a club in the gravest of situations. They appear to have no strategy whatsoever, and their team is a shadow of what it was two or three years ago.

They have a boardroom collective which doesn’t seem interested any longer.

Yesterday they were toothless and kind of shambolic. They are precisely the kind of team I’d expect us to stick five away against, one hovering just above total meltdown.

Neither the performance nor the result was a great surprise to me; it was what we needed, and what was required, after a dreadful midweek display.

But in real terms, nothing really changed.

We went into the match with the same rigid playing system we fielded in Norway, the same one man up front, with only a few tweaks to the personnel.

The decision to play Tierney looked right, because he’s clearly a talented kid, and the one to play Simunovic was a no brainer considering we need him up to speed and fast.

He, actually, strolled. But no-one can be under any illusions about that game having offered him a stern test.

Tougher matches lie just ahead, and then we’ll see.

More and more, the last few months have forced me towards the conclusion that it’s not really the personnel who are the problem.

We were conceding stupid goals when Van Dijk was in the centre of defence and Ronny’s experimented about much with the back line as it’s possible to do, and we continue to leak goals all over the place, with yesterday an exception.

The flaws in our playing system remain, and one really good result doesn’t change that.

Mixu Paatelainen had never faced Celtic in this formation before; Robby Neilson has and so has Derek McInnes, and they’ve got better players than the United boss, and a better idea how to counter our obvious weaknesses.

Speaking bluntly, I feel I know the Celtic playing system well enough that I could devise tactics to beat it; they’d be focussed on the counter attack, allowing Celtic time on the ball. I’d start my quickest front men and play an ultra-defensive game which floods the penalty box with my teams players – the football equivalent of rope-a-dope.

It ain’t sexy, but I’ve seen it work against us this season, on more than one occasion.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t fear either of this weeks games.

A trip to Tynecastle would usually hold all the fear of a bubble bath, and Aberdeen coming to Celtic Park used to be one of those occasions where you knew you could stick it to Ladbrokes with a cheeky wee bet giving the away team two goals of a start.

Yet Wednesday night’s game makes me nervous and I’m not remotely soothed by looking over the Pittodrie club’s recent run of form.

If there was ever a time for them to break out of it …

In spite of all this, in spite of the general tone, I believe strongly in the idea that when circumstances change I change my mind.

Ronny made me a believer last season, but performances this season have shattered that.

I fear the manager isn’t the guy and that we’re stuck with this playing system of his until we run into a truly wretched 90 minutes which forces people inside Celtic Park to rethink things, but I do still want to be convinced. If the manager showed some tactical flexibility that would go a long way towards assuaging my concerns, but equally if our players suddenly grow into this one and end up beating all comers, well that would be pretty sweet.

What will convince me more than anything, of course, are results.

The same again versus Hearts will do nicely.

End Aberdeen’s title pretensions at the weekend.

Follow that up with a comfortable win over Molde at Celtic Park and you may hear me singing a different song, one that I’d enjoy a hell of a lot more than the capella version of Don’t Fear The Reaper that I did here on Friday.

The next three games might well define our season and the manager’s future. It would only take losing one of them to ratchet up the pressure on him. If he loses two then all Hell will break loose. If he suffered the ultimate calamity and we lost all three then that’d be the end of that Ronny experiment and the CEO will be lucky to survive the fallout.

I don’t expect that to happen, of course.

I certainly don’t want it to.

If we’re going to lose any of them I expect it to be Molde in the Europa League, although I would prefer any setback to come against Aberdeen, as we can make that one up.

Europa League defeat, of course, would all but seal our fate in that group but it would leave the domestic treble ambition intact and for now that’ll need to be enough, because we’re kidding ourselves on about even being a second tier team at the moment where continental football is concerned.

On top of all that, of course, if Ronny Deila suffers a Tony Mowbray style reversal in any match between now and January I really think that’ll be that, but the games against Ajax and Fenerbahce are surely the only ones where a result like that is to be genuinely feared.

The next three games afford Ronny an opportunity to win a lot of the doubters over.

If we win them convincingly then confidence will be partially restored, and some of our concerns can be partially set aside.

Anything less than three wins will confirm some of our serious doubts.

I want those doubts erased.

I do want to believe.

This is my club, and I love it.

I want to see it succeed.

I am waiting to be proved wrong, Ronny.

Win the next three games and give us our confidence back.