Last night, as the full time whistle went in Molde, you could almost feel something shift, imperceptibly, on Planet Celtic. The tectonic plates moved; it was only a hair, but it was real, and you could feel it whether you were in Norway or Stornoway. It was undeniable.
It could not be confused with someone cutting a loud fart in the main stand.
Ronny Deila arrived at Celtic Park amidst great promise. I thought it was a great appointment, and there have been times during his tenure when I’ve been convinced we were on the right lines. Equally, there have been times when I’ve been sure we weren’t.
I’ve tried to put the positive gloss on Ronny’s time at Celtic Park, and indeed there are times when it hasn’t been hard. But for a scandalous refereeing decision last season we’d have been within a hair of the treble, which would have put our manager in a very small, select club including Martin O’Neill and Jock Stein. That would have been one Hell of a debut season.
Equally, we’ve witnessed appalling performances and scandalous results, things which have given form to the creeping doubts some of us have felt for a while now.
Even in games where we’ve won, those where our results have been positive, those doubts have been hard to shake. Glaring problems plague us.
The way we constantly concede goals from set pieces is dreadfully scary, putting us at risk in every match, no matter the level of opposition.
Then there’s the way this much vaunted “high pressing game” – which seems to have missed the pressing part in recent months – leaves us lethally exposed to the high long ball.
In addition is Deila’s unbelievable inflexibility in playing one man up front, even in the SPL, and his sticking with the same basic playing system even in games where it is plainly not working. In the SPL we can sometimes get away with it. In Europe we never will.
Ajax’s manager took a while to adapt his playing style to counter ours, and they got a 2-2 draw out of it. Fenerbahce’s manager sussed it out quicker; his teams was already 2-0 when he realised that our system was vulnerable, and he acted accordingly. We were the ones lucky to get the 2-2 draw in that game because they ruthlessly exposed us every time they want up the park.
Last night though, well their manager came prepared. He knew our system from the start, because it never changes a bit, and he knew exactly how to counter the attacking parts and expose the defensive ones. We were awfully goddamned lucky that wasn’t a bigger defeat.
We’re playing Molde at Celtic Park in early November, and those who’re talking about us winning that match and getting back on track are more optimistic than they ought to be. Their coach will be bringing his team to a half empty stadium where we’re no longer feared, to play against a system and a manager he can already predict well in advance, who’s weaknesses he’s already exploited in full … why does anyone fancy us to take points out of that?
Likewise the Dutch and the team from Turkey. I think we’ve had our shot at beating both, when they didn’t know what system they’d be up against or the relative strengths of our players. They’ve both seen how little we have to offer and frankly I think we’ve blown it. I don’t expect to get anything from those games, because our team is there for the taking and they know it.
I saw nothing last night which makes me feel positive; indeed, everything I witnessed scares me about as badly as anything at Celtic Park has since Tony Mowbray was manager there.
There were signs, many of them, even in the early part of his tenure, that things weren’t working, that there was something wrong under the hood, that the club wasn’t going anywhere.
Can anyone, honestly, point to this Celtic team and say it has improved in the last two years?
That there’s a clear direction of travel?
That things are … progressing?
In truth, you could make an argument for saying we’ve gone backwards. What boggled the mind last night was not simply the result, it was how easy it was for the home side.
Are we better than the side who took on Milan last season?
All the evidence suggests we’re not.
There’s no sign of the verve and passion and determination of that night. All forward momentum has been lost, and I fear we won’t get it back.
A lot of the attention today will be focussed on Kris Commons, and his reaction to being subbed. That, too, worried me and ought to worry every Celtic fan.
If I were in charge of our first team he’d have played his last game in our colours; no player should ever think he has the right to pull that kind of crap, in public, whether he’s angry or not.
Jock Stein would never have accepted it for one second.
What worries me is that Commons felt he was on solid enough ground to do it. That suggests that our management team is shockingly weak and that’s a concern above and beyond bad results and performances.
I’ve never liked John Collins, and I never wanted him at Celtic Park, and I can actually trace the moment Deila first started to worry me all the way back to the press conference where he was appointed manager. He was talking, then, about bringing in his own people when he was flatly, and publicly, contradicted by Peter Lawwell who “promoted” the idea of having someone who “understood the local game” on the payroll.
I wrote a lengthy, angry article on that for Fields at the time.
I wondered then whether our manager was capable of being his own man; that suggestion made no sense whatsoever either then or now but he accepted it as if it did, and everyone knew Collins was the guy the board had in mind.
He was someone imposed on Deila rather than someone brought in by him, and it was notable last night that Commons focussed much of his ire on the Scot rather than on the Norwegian who is supposed to be running things.
Something else scared me. Scott Brown, on TV, seeming to slap down Commons.
All of this would all be bad enough if the dressing room had been lost to the manager entirely, but that would, at least, narrow our problems down to one simple solution.
Instead, Brown made it seem fractured, factionalised, divided against itself …. a recipe for disaster if ever there was one, and something that won’t be cured simply by replacing the management team.
We have problems here that go way beyond the coaching team. At every level of our club is the reek of fear, and the undercurrent of defeatism and lack of imagination.
We will dominate Scotland for the next couple of years. No-one realistically disputes that. The one club that might have presented a challenge has shown it has no appetite for the bright lights. To get to the top and stay there requires more than Aberdeen has.
But there are other threats out there, of course, and if we continue to go backwards someone will catch us, and end any ambitions we have of reaching ten in a row … which seems, on a day like today, such a pathetic and parochial wee ambition anyway, and the ultimate proof of how little we’ll settle for.
Our sights used to be far, far higher than that.
On that greater front, our decline is now abundantly clear and it’s all the more shocking for being entirely predictable.
During the last months of Tony Mowbray’s time at Celtic Park there were a number of our fans who started mentally preparing themselves to enter a very dark place. They knew a night like St Mirren was coming; you could see it a mile down the road.
At around about that time, someone told me they’d started thinking of the Mowbray tenure as like caring for a terminally ill relative.
Every day brought with it new agonies, until, finally, for the sake of everyone involved, you start yearning for it to be over, for one dark day to bring matters to a close, letting everyone grieve and then get on with it.
“You want it to be over with quick,” is what he told me.
That same person later told me that watching the third and fourth goals go in that night in Paisley was horrible, but oddly cathartic because everyone in the stands realised it was finished.
For the last twenty minutes of the game last night, I thought about that guy and those words, and had we conceded a fourth, and a fifth, I may, too, have felt that odd sense of cleansing, of relief, because that, surely, would have been the end.
I’ve got no more faith in the Deila “experiment”.
I saw enough last night to convince me that we’re already on the down slope to the end. A lot of fans, who otherwise were keeping their own council, last night similarly made up their minds, and you could hear it in the stands at the game when Commons was taken off, and it was there, real and raw, on the forums.
And with that now firm in my mind, with that now settled, I hope that it’s quick, that we don’t have to drag it out, that it’s not going to hurt any more than it has to.
(This article was amended to change the top line, which originally read Malmo not Molde. The consequence of writing with a pounding headache, entirely brought on by that nonsense last night.)
For the good of the club the manager should be replaced,this zonal marking will kill the club and his team selections are confusing at times.
I agree with you 100% Tom.
ronny dellia and collins are lost ,the teams in a mess,the longer we kp dellia the harder it will be to quallify for nxt yrs chmp lgue,ide rather even alan stubbs managed us than dellia and collins,they have went backwards,2yr ago dellia had a better team and its declined ,since he got here,ps the better team didnt make it either,nd i say more.the rangers fans will soon be singing his praise
this is all the board,s fault,they want to do everything on the cheap.The management team are well out their depth.The fans are being ripped off week in week out.they have been buying third class players and getting loan players who are not even second division class.BRING back the nine in a row days.
I agree with a lot of what you say. I do not see any progress and just as important I don’t see a manager capable of learning from his mistakes.
I think he has a good footballing mind and often identifies the problems, what he lacks is the ability to do something about it. He would have been a very good number 2.
Last night is the beginning of the end which is a shame but it’s how it works. I reckon Ronny will be with us for a month or so while an alternative is sourced.
Who do we replace him with? It’s still going to be Lawell pulling the strings and cutting the budget, and if we get it right and start building a decent team the board will start to sell it off as usual!
Yup agree with e/thing u say….izzy ambrose boyata cmon time for change….club going backwards…..lambert maybe
i’m sorry but Ronnie has to go. Last night showed once again he’s way out of his depth
Hard to disagree with your thoughts, although as analogies go, the one regarding Mowbray’s tenure is in very poor taste…’like caring for a terminally ill relative’…Tony Mowbray!!! FFS, a little sensitivity wouldn’t go amiss. H × 2
Spot on mulsiebhoy……..a comment in very poor taste about a terminally ill relative FFS.
I keep hearing about people not liking John Collins, saying he’s arrogant etc, no one ever backs it up/gives any credence to it. I remember the escapades at Hibs involving a young immature rediculous Scott Brown and his cronies, that was simply about doing extra sessions, and John Collins having high standards, – that’s what I want at Celtic. The only players that seem to have a problem with us are guys like Commons, Stokes etc who can’t handle discipline and hard work. Commons is average and the bottom line is no big clubs have ever rated him, even when he has been on a free transfer. Players like him can be a cancer at a club, undermining what the manager is trying to do, and basically taking liberties! Last night was an embarrassment, especially pointing at the fans, as if he’s some sort of Demi-God! The place needs gutted, and if Ronny can’t stand up to these imposters he needs to move on, and I like his ideas, but the players are letting us all down! If he does leave I’d like Chris Coleman or Brendan Rodgers as head coach and a new director of football to replace John Park, who is more mysterious than Dermot Desmond! Even someone from leftfield like Marcelo Bielsa. From top to bottom the club is ordinary, and I don’t trust any of them running the club. They are either thick and backward or simply enjoy making all the fans suffer!
Last night was a disaster, no question about it. The buck always stops at the manager and I am in no mood to defend him much either as he picks the team, but at what point do the players take some responsibility?
Molde are not a good team. But any professional footballer will be punished by other professional players if they simply cannot pass the ball or do the basics right. I know they make mistakes but at least three players, Boyata, Armstrong and Gordon were to blame for the first goal. Their collective performance was a disgrace. No manager in the world would have imagined such a lack of skill and effort from three players in his team.
The manager must take the blame for the tactics and the substitutions were bizarre. But he picked two established internationals who did not look fit, interested or capable. Johansen and Lustig were both garbage. What was Lustig doing at the third goal I have no idea. I see Chris Sutton had a go at Efe again but Efe was no where near as bad as at least 8 or 9 others in the team.
You say you have no faith in the Deila experiment, but who would you have replace him. This is a limited group and they are hardly a select bunch. We are talking about the likes of Owen Coyle, Paul Hartley etc etc. I don’t even think Roy Keane would touch it with a barge-pole (thank God). The more hopeful mention Brendan Rogers, but he won’t come near the place for the money on offer and the cash available to him.
Deila has only been in the job 16 months. This is no time at all. Sacking a manager every two or three years is nuts. Clubs that do this go round and round in circles. However, Ronny must know that he is reaching a serious point in his tenure. He needs to be more adaptable. He needs to have a Plan B and Plan C.
The Europa League is finished for this year. Why not throw off the shackles and play emerging players. We should be trying to get as far in front in the league as possible to be able to spend the last 10 to 12 games using the likes of Tierney, Janko, Nesbitt etc for prolonged periods. This would at least show that Deila is planning for the future.
Also, get rid of the likes of Lustig and Johansen. They are either too unfit or to uninterested to play. Celtic will get money for these two (although their price is falling every time they play). Ronny needs to show he is willing to see what is in front of his eyes and change it. If he does not then he deserves the sack.
I also agree that Commons should not have reacted the way he did. However, he was simply not thinking. He lost it due to feeling exactly the way the rest of us feel. If I had been in has place I would have lost it as well, particularly as Johansen remained on the pitch! In my disappointment I only saw 2 substitutions, surely this cannot be right? Why did Rogic remain on the bench is a mystery also.
Ronny and Collins have to go now but will the board have the guts to do it?
All the rants have been said about Ambrose, Boyata, Johansen (teachers pet) Emilio etc etc
so where now? Ronny wont change and his tenure is coming to an end ,lets hope its quick.
An assistant manager at best should be his lot, excuse after excuse from the management team wont do, when he was appointed he sent Stokes to the left wing,(didn’t work) and for the life of me I cant see Armstrong as a left winger either…..and for Biton to be compared to a certain Barcelona midfielder is comical to say the least. Petrov was right we could have taken
a right drubbing last night……..and then Ronny would have been gone today, that drubbing might yet come and it wont be a pretty sight….for the management team OR Lawell!
The only Ronnie roar I want to hear is his jet engine taking off from Glasgow Airport with a one way ticket to Norway.HH.
Ronnie should never have been appointed as manager. Peter Lawell needs to have a good look at himself. Our once great club deserves better than this. Malmo and Molde proves that there are better managers out there, ones that have a bit more tactical nouse.
If Ronnie is a football manager then I’m George Clooney.
Whats that Amall? I’m just coming.
Message to Mr Lawell, ” The key is getting the correct manager, the rest should follow!”
I agree with a lot of that, i was the same when Mowbray was here actually wanting the team to lose so his end would come quicker, last night i was hoping Molde would score a 4th, 5th or even a 6th.
Delia like Mowbray is Lawwells disaster, he is the man who bought into the same nonsense about a football philosophy neither one of these 2 imposters could deliver, Delia is liable but so is Lawwell, huge bonus for costing the club millions on experiments that have failed badly
Well said ronny and Johnny and lawell should be held accountable not the players no passion in the dressing room now I think beavis and butthead have turned the team against them and rightly so time too clear out the rubbish and start again before we end up with the zombies not because of raping the tax man because of shite play and managment
The easiest position of any player playing against Celtic has to be their Goalkeeper! We spend so long square passing then back passing square again until a sloppy pass gives away possession
to allow the opposition one pass forward and with our full back’s so far up field we are immediately under pressure. This slow build up style allows the opposition so much time to organise their defence that we get so few goal scoring chances. With all the possession we had against Motherwell how often was their goalie required to make a save? Our style of play has become so stereotyped and rigid that any half decent team will take advantage.
Well said poor manager poor board. No passion in the dressing room team are starting too loose faith in him like the fans time too pack ya bags ronny and Johnny and lawell enough is enough we have too play our next match how many times have we heard that no sorry from ronny I think it’s sad he can’t admit he ain’t up too the job ronny roar more like ronny poor we had one of the best defences in Europe now a minor would get through them players bought no defenders there ain’t a brain between then
Great article. One glaring omission as far as I’m concerned is the role played by defensive coach John Kennedy. Exactly what is his pedigree to undertake such a role. No offence to the young man but he has neither the guile or experience to be in such a demanding role at Celtic.. The defence is a shambles and has been for a long time. Yes there has been injuries and suspensions but that does not excuse the fact that at a basic level we cannot defend, we have no concept about zonal marking and our defenders cannot make a simply pass out off defence. Maybe I’m a bit old and out off touch with presents systems but I was always taught ….. if you cannot defend then you will not win games. Personally I think that someone with more experience is needed as a defensive coach
It would seem there are divisions in the dressing room, and if a manager loses the dressing room it’s all over I’m afraid.
Can’t say I’ve read anything with which I would disagree. Our European performances are becoming embarrassing
Nearing the end?
This guy is simply incompetent and has never been anything else. He should never have been given the opportunity to manage us. But since we can’t go backwards, and are too cheap to move forwards, where do we go from here?
There are real capable managers out there. We had an opportunity to stride away from the others in Scotland for years to come, yet here we sit today, barely level with our closest competitors.
Ronny has nothing but futile excuses for each and every incompetent move. I appreciate the players feel they have to stand by him publicly, but make no mistake, privately, they are all cringing. For want of better words, Ronny is incompetent. Incapable of making reasonable decisions. He has an over-inflated ego thinking he has this “new wave” style of thinking that no-one has ever thought about before to revolutionize the world game! Really Ronny? Fancy Fergie, Stein, Clough, Smith, Busby, Wenger, Mourinho, Robson, Shankley, etc etc, all missing these revelations! Shame on them! Deila has taken us backwards, years and years backwards! In fairness, it isn’t all his fault. Lawwell hired him for one reason and one reason only. He was cheap! He thought given a year or so he would start to become a real manager! Well Peter, he hasn’t, and he won’t, he can’t. Meanwhile, you have dragged us backwards, removed any advantage we had to sweep away the rest, and are just another Scottish team now. Against Motherwell last week, the official crowd attendance was 8,888. We, once the biggest club ob earth, can’t even attract 9,000 spectators to a game less than 30 minutes from our home stadium. Is this not a warning sign? Fans do not like the product. Then again, how could they?
We stink!
First of all I was also dismayed and angry at last night’s performance and result and agree with many fans that there needs to be a wake up call for management in their selection of certain players. However, we have never played well on plastic pitches and the home team always have a big advantage particularly when they play in a tactical style that suits these unnatural playing areas. We were dire against Hamilton a few weeks ago and it was obvious that our defenders couldn’t cope with the style of play required on that surface. My main point is not about the plastic pitch but about certain players who I think have let us down far too often and particularly in key games. Commons – lazy,unfit,casual and prone to giving the ball away far too often. He also couldn’t tackle the proverbial supper with fish in it. Johansen – lazy, casual,gives ridiculous fouls away in bad places and seems to have a very high opinion of himself. His passing has also been simply awful. Boyata and Effe – simply not good enough to be Celtic centre halfs and give ball away far too often. I would bring in both Allen and Janko ASAP and give both extended runs. Finally, we are all hurting at the moment but can we try to remain calm and dignified when we are talking about our management team? They aren’t going anywhere and undermining them in public only benefits our enemies. Let’s wait until the end of the season and take stock of the trophy cabinet and future potential.