Celtic’s problems keep mounting up, and every hack out there is freely indulging in the art of giving us a swift kick. This is hardly a great shock; indeed, it would be more surprising if this wasn’t the case.
On top of that, we’re getting “advice” from every quarter.
How much of it is good advice? Oh man, precious little of it. Even those who are well-meaning – and there are a handful of them – are offering us the kind of advice which is akin to that which was once offered by travelling doctor’s shops and fairground quacks.
“Oh this broken nose looks serious … I think we’ll have to take off the leg.”
I’ve read positive, constructive, criticism from one person lately; Anthony Joseph of Sky Sports.
He has talked a lot of sense these past few weeks and when he posted a thread earlier in the week which was taken up today Celtic cyberspace was talking about it, and for very good reasons. You can read the full clicking on the link below.
Celtic need to be thinking long-term in their planning now. Next season is going to need a huge rebuild from top to bottom, to sustain prolonged success in the future. With Rangers also in the #UCL, it won’t be good enough to fail to prepare for qualifiers. That money is vital.
— Anthony Joseph (@AnthonyRJoseph) January 12, 2021
Joseph has at least tried to articulate a way forward.
This wasn’t scattergun ranting from an enemy of Celtic; this was a “be all you can be” thread from a guy with a lot of love for our club.
The only other person I’ve read lately who even tried that was Rodger Mitchell, another guy with a lot of affection for Celtic and who, furthermore, has the experience of running a major football organisation.
These are serious people, which is why we should take them seriously when they do what so few others have and actually propose solutions rather than pointing out the problems.
None of it was revolutionary; he admits that himself. But it’s more than anyone else in his field is offering. It is more than anyone in his business can muster up.
Joseph’s point is that we have to think beyond the event horizon.
We have to start planning for next season now; something this blog has been very vocal on. He thinks we need to spend as big as we’re able to be as ready as we can be for the Champions League qualifiers.
He is right to say that it’s time we budgeted for success rather than failure.
He is also right to say that we need a full-scale management review, and a change to a system where we have a Sporting Director/Director of Football who runs the entire operational side of the club save for the coaching and management of the team.
This guy would work hand in hand with the manager to plan, in advance, what the manager needs for the playing squad … and Lawwell and the other bean-counters would keep their noses out of it.
I’d go a step further and say that the Sporting Director must be answerable only to the full board.
He should not find himself dependent on the goodwill (or otherwise) of one man. The two men I have in mind should play no part in the club beyond this campaign, but if one of them stays (and you’d think it would be Desmond) the hiring of the Sporting Director ought to be the last time he ever gets to play a role in the football department regardless.
Joseph has got right to the heart of it; this is the system we should have adopted years ago.
Instead we have Desmond and Lawwell rampaging through the football side of the business and making decisions without consulting the guys who run the team … and that has to end.
The process of second guessing those guys has to end. All of it.
Contrast someone like Joseph with someone like Kris Boyd, go from one end of the scale to the other.
Boyd is in the papers today for his smirking, grinning, gleeful attitude towards what’s happening at Celtic right now. As if “Kris Boyd hates Celtic” is a story worth printing, or something a single person in this country isn’t wholly aware of already.
Some people want to comment, properly, on the things that have gone wrong whilst others want to point fingers and preen, or worse, to gloat.
Which of them is a real journalist and which isn’t?
The answer is surely obvious.