Over the last couple of days, a lot of media outlets, including our old friends at The Daily Record, have been busily promoting the managerial pedigree of Alan Stubbs.
There is a dual purpose to this.
First it increases his stock, and the more they do that the more they can surround his Hibs future in doubt, at a crucial point in the Championship season.
Second, they can increase the pressure on Ronny Deila, by promoting Stubbs as a future Celtic boss.
All of this is transparently obvious, and they must think we are mugs to try it.
Leading the line is our old friend Keith Jackson, who filled an entire column yesterday with an article about how Stubbs is the obvious choice. The piece was littered with snide comments about Deila, the kind that make Celtic fans crazy as they have little to do with football ability and everything about a perception of our manager as some kind of bumbling fool.
Let me dissuade Jackson of any notion that we see our manager that way.
Ronny Deila is a highly intelligent man, with more knowledge in what he cuts off the ends of his fingernails than certain of Scotland’s “award winning hacks” will ever acquire in a lifetime. Whether the Celtic job is simply overwhelming him or not, this is a guy with a big future n football. On top of that, if he chose, Deila could walk away from the sport entirely and forge himself a career in any number of other fields.
Keith Jackson and some of his critics? Well, if you took away their press cards and make them work for a living, these guys would literally starve.
The greatest and most ridiculous contradiction in the piece concerns what would be regarded as a success or failure for either boss.
Jackson believes that Deila will be considered a failure even if he delivers a league and cup double.
On the other hand, he thinks Stubbs ought to be considered a success even if he accomplishes nothing.
Eah? What?
Nowhere is there a clearer case of media bias against the Norwegian.
If Deila wins a double then he would be fully entitled to regard that as a decent enough season, and a success.
What else can you call it?
What did Jackson call it when McCoist won his lower league titles with Sevco?
I don’t remember him calling his mate’s managerial “credibility” into question either, although he has no issue doing that with Ronny.
The question facing the Celtic board will revolve around whether they think the manager can take us to the next level. I don’t think he can; I think giving him another Champions League run is a disaster waiting to happen, and I see no evidence that his long term ideas will bear fruit.
But in Scotland, this guy could continue winning things for years.
I like Alan Stubbs, but I will consider his season a failure if Hibs are not promoted or miss out on the League Cup.
One success out of two would be a great achievement.
If he wins the Championship and triumphs at Hampden then, for sure, he’s a contender if a vacancy comes up.
Until then, Stubbs hasn’t achieved anything in the game … and the idea that we would sack a double winning boss to appoint a guy with no notable accomplishment to his name would be ludicrous. Without a major success to his credit, Stubbs lacks the key prerequisite to be Celtic boss. The only thing you would overlook it for would be experience at the highest level, as someone like Moyes has … and Stubbs hasn’t got that to fall back on either.
Ronny Deila came to Celtic having already won a domestic league and cup, and with an unfancied team.
That entitled him to be considered for the job in the first place, no matter what the hacks might squeal to the contrary. This appointment hasn’t worked out … but as risks go it was one that was worth taking, one that wasn’t necessarily doomed from the start.
Jackson knows all this, because although he comes off as one when he writes crap like this he isn’t actually an idiot. He’s well aware of everything I’ve just written and he knows the whole “Stubbs for Celtic” bandwagon is constructed around a pretty weak foundation.
If Lawwell really is thinking beyond Deila, he most certainly shouldn’t be thinking about a manager in Scotland’s second tier who has never won a thing. The media in this country would crucify him if he did such a thing and they know it and so do we.
Jackson and others are stirring it here.
They’re promoting the cause of the manager who might just whip automatic promotion from under Warburton’s feet, and they’re not doing it to make sure Stubbs moves onwards and upwards. It’s a move designed to unsettle things at Hibs, a crude, pretty weak, attempt at destabilisation with the ancillary benefit that it also messes with Ronny’s radar at Celtic Park as well, and leads to weeks of ridiculous speculation.
Neither Stubbs nor Deila should be paying it the slightest heed.
And we shouldn’t either.