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Celtic’s Lock On Scottish Football Looks Unassailable, And We’re Tightening Our Grip.

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Last week, Scott Brown suggested that this was the best Celtic squad he has ever been a part of, and I did a piece on that to examine the claim. Broadly speaking, he’s right.

There were parts of the summer window which were a little underwhelming, but overall the squad has emerged from it stronger than it has been in quite some time and this has been borne out by a series of excellent results, domestically and in Europe.

Celtic is in a good place.

Only our rivals – and the media – would deny this.

Nine in a row is a huge campaign for us, but this club has been playing in huge campaigns every year for as long as I can remember. We’ve handled the last three years splendidly.

On Sunday we produced scintillating football … and secured six wins out of six in the league. It is our best start to a league campaign since a team called Rangers existed.

And you know what? It reflects our overall superiority.

We have a stranglehold on Scottish football … and these are the reasons it is set to continue.

The management team is improving with every game

Neil Lennon came back to Celtic with the third best managerial win ratio in our history.

Was he a better manager than the one who left Parkhead before? Of course.

He has been away and spent time at two clubs since then, and whilst his return was not greeted with universal enthusiasm there’s a good feeling around the club now.

The growth from last season to this is extraordinary for a start.

We’re playing better football than we have since the Invincible campaign.

We look calm under pressure.

Our European away form, in particular, has improved out of sight.

Domestically we are powerful, and look as if we’re going to be hard to beat. I think we’ll lose games this season – I don’t buy that we’ll do another Invincible season – but we’ll secure the league title with room to spare and put Lennon and his team on the cusp of immortality.

Recent additions to the coaching team bode well for the future too, especially the return of Darren O’Dea who is highly rated as a coach.

A good team is being assembled, and that includes in the scouting department although I’m baffled as to why Nicky Hammond hasn’t just been given the job on a permanent basis yet. Tommy Johnson is said to be a candidate to join his team.

It seems as if we’re in a more solid position than we’ve had for some time, and that means that things are going to continue to get better off the field and behind the scenes.

The financial position of the club continues to be very strong

The sale of Kieran Tierney has offset any potential losses from the failure to reach the Champions League Group stages.

Yet, even if this sale had not been made, it is likely that our side would have posted a modest profit at the end of the current campaign.

Celtic’s financial position is extremely strong. Apart from being comfortable in terms of our wages to turnover ratio, we are sitting on a cash surplus that would see us through a couple of very lean years in a row, should such a disaster every arise.

To be honest, it is difficult to see anything which would – or could – cause such a crisis at the club.

Our ground is full for every game. Our season tickets are priced nicely; in spite of so many title wins and trophies, our season tickets aren’t even the most expensive in the country. The club is operating at a higher capacity – across the boards – than ever before.

More money means more to offer for players, in wages, in bonuses. I know the SFA pours scorn on the idea that the clubs with the most money have the most success, but let’s face it, that’s just another fig leaf on their failure to properly sanction Rangers for the illegal registration of players.

Everyone who watches football anywhere knows the truth of it.

Celtic’s financial power makes us the strongest club in Scotland, no matter what others might think.

With the cash coming in we can sustain our strength far into the future.

Major Champions League changes have been postponed … Europa League ones haven’t

Do not underestimate how much the changes to European football will impact on our position.

If Champions League reforms had gone through we’d have found it very hard to get to the Groups, through a qualification stream that would have become ever more crowded and ever more difficult to navigate. UEFA’s decision to back down is good news.

But don’t underestimate the damage that will be done to every other club by UEFA’s decision to introduce a third competition, one that the Scottish clubs who finish second and below will have to go to.

This will remove them from the sources of real money and real exposure; the world will be watching the top tournament and the current Europa.

Nobody will watch it. Nobody will care. Scottish clubs who think they are going to make mega money out of it – and especially those which are betting everything on European income – are in for a big surprise if they reckon they are going to get it there.

The football haves are going to have more than ever before.

The have nots are going to have much, much less … and this builds in a major structural advantage for whichever Scottish team sits on top of the tree.

It has been a nearly a decade since we failed to make a European group stage … and if we drop out of the Champions League under these new changes the Europa League will still be available to us … so as long as we reach the Groups we win either way.

And the deadly truth of this has not even begun to sink in elsewhere yet.

Our rivals continue to be an absolute shambles

Our rivals are a mess, and not just the club at Ibrox, who I will get to momentarily.

Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts, Kilmarnock … the sides who have consistently pushed us, all are tumbling this season, all are in bad shape.

There is no sign that any of them is going to emerge as a legitimate contender.

Hibs and Killie are bedding in new managers but it’s not clear how much time either man is going to get.

Aberdeen are suffering because they cannot look past the serial underachiever McInnes.

Last season they meekly accepted their fall back to being the third club, although they didn’t even manage to reach those heights. Whatever challenge they might once have mounted, they are going nowhere under this guy, and their board will not act.

Hibs did act, in getting rid of Lennon. You wonder now about the sanity of that, as their team hasn’t improved one iota since he left. Higginbotham does not look as if he knows where he wants to take the team and they’ve really lost form since he took over.

Yesterday they surrendered a 1-0 lead at home, to Hearts and lost the game.

It is quite some feat to be outsmarted by Craig Levein.

His team were bottom of the league before the kick-off, a team in absolute freefall.

Frankly, he has plunged Hearts into crisis, and regardless of his backing from Lennon – of all people – I think he is a joke as a manager and they will be better when he’s gone.

He survives for another day … but the denoument can’t long in coming.

Which brings us to Sevco … more on them shortly.

We are building another excellent squad of youngsters

During the summer window, we brought in four excellent football prospects.

We signed a full back, a centre back a central midfielder and a striker.

The centre back, Lee O’Connor, came from Mancheter United and is so highly rated that their fans were furious we were able to get him without a least a buy-back clause. (I don’t even think they got that.) From Manchester City we brought right back Jeremie Frimpong. He, too, is rated very highly and they had wanted to keep him. Luca Connell was a huge loss to Bolton, and he plays at central midfield. The striker is Jonathan Afolabi, from Southampton.

Three – Afolabi, O’Connor and Connell – are Republic of Ireland Under 21’s. Two of them are 19. Two are 18. All four are rated as good enough to make the first team squad; indeed, Lennon has confirmed that Afolabi is already on the brink of a call up.

These guys will be moved towards first team football over the course of the campaign.

We should expect to see every single one of them in the side before it ends, and they will all be first team squad members by next season.

They could all make it big, but I know the club is excited about all four.

With Mikey Johnson, Oko-Flex, Dembele, Henderson and others already making their way into the squad it is an exciting time to be a Celtic fan.

Bear in mind, Rogic, Ajer and Wanyama were all signed as promising youth players. So too was Edouard. He and Ajer are especially significant as both are first team, first picks, under 22 and have been at the club so long they were eligible for the UEFA B-List … this clearly factors into our long term thinking, and makes these signings look even better.

We are tying top players down on long term deals

One of the mainstream outlets did an article during the week about how our efforts to tie down McGregor and Ajer mean that all of our first choice players will be secured on long-term deals which both compensate them properly and put us in a strong position should interest from elsewhere arise.

Clearly Lennon will not want to sell top players … but we know how that turns out.

This won’t stop bigger clubs from poaching our guys, but signing long term deals shows a commitment to the club and protects us. Actually I do believe that the bulk of our squad does see being at Celtic as a medium-to-long term deal.

Next season makes every one of them a History Bhoy.

The insurance policy is important to us.

We’ve lost out on players leaving before.

What happened with Boyata was a ridiculous attempt to appease a manager who already had one foot out the door; the club knows that was a big mistake to make and is determined never to go down that road again. It’s why Sinclair got an extra year on his deal, although we didn’t sell him in the summer.

Overall, this gives us more the appearance of stability than actual stability … but don’t assume that’s not important.

It is a great selling point in attracting people to the club; the family aspect, the idea that it is a settled environment where people feel at home.

Success breeds success and a winning mentality

You know why we look likely to be successful this season?

Because we were successful last season. And the season before that.

And the one before that too.

Success breeds success because players get used to winning.

They want to keep on winning.

They know how to deal with pressure, and with high expectations.

And this team has proved that, over and over again.

They can cope with all this.

Brian Clough was the key proponent of the idea that teams had to develop a winning mentality.

He used to enter his teams in obscure friendly competitions to get them used to picking up silverware.

The thing is, Sevco has never won a major honour … and that is a tough hoodoo to break. It will be tough for all the clubs now; it’s been three years since any of them got a winners medal.

The longer that run goes on, the more mentally strong this team is.

And it’s important for the new players to get their first taste of the glory … that’s why the League Cup is vital this season. We can progress in that tournament a few days from now … and set the new members of the squad up for their own glory days to come.

Ibrox is sitting on a debt volcano, and it will blow

Celtic’s biggest rival – if you believe the media – is the Ibrox club.

But there are one or two problems with the Ibrox club which the press does not want to discuss.

The collapse of Thomas Cook shows you what we’re dealing with here; it’s not the only sign of trouble.

When Alan Brazil said, last week, that he knew there were “major problems” behind the scenes at Ibrox he was quite correct.

There are.

That club is haunted by raw numbers, both those which put Celtic ahead on the pitch and those which put them ahead off the pitch too.

Their club is sitting on a debt volcano which is certain to blow.

The only real question is when.

If it comes during a domestic football campaign it carries with it a ten point penalty. It is difficult to see how the illusion of “challenging Celtic” could be maintained if that happened.

And there will be no getting over the crisis and getting back to spending big afterwards; when Sevco enters administration the shock will be seismic and the effects permanent.

Explaining those effects will require a bigger article than this.

Suffice to say that everyone at Ibrox is well aware of the impact it will have, and a lot of desperate scrambling is going on behind the scenes to prevent that scenario coming to pass.

Their failure to offload at least one player on a high transfer fee in the summer window has already cost them their Director of Football … the mounting debt crisis could yet spark a move against the chairman. At that point, all bets are off.

And if you’re wondering if people inside Celtic know all this … of course they do.

Everyone who can use a calculator knows it, and that’s based just on the numbers which are in the public domain. The club itself will know much more than we do.

No wonder the smiles are so wide at Celtic Park right now.

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