Celtic has spent the entire campaign so far operating a “better never than late” policy. If we suddenly switch it, now, to “better late than never”, that will be a change of pace for sure and one that will give us a twinkling of hope for the future.
The kind of change that will put us back on track is one that gives us clarity about the direction we are headed in. The one where heads roll and we start looking for their replacements, with a clear plan to follow. It will be difficult. Anything worth doing is.
Until something changes we are basically waiting, and whilst we wait the media is going to have a field day indulging in every kind of speculation that they can. Some of it will be at least partially informed, but most of it will be nonsense of course.
The current rumours surround Nick Hammond, and I suspect they are largely rubbish.
There are many reasons why, but I’ll tell you the first of them; Nick Hammond is nowhere near to being the biggest problem at the club. Dismissing him would not come close to solving our problems.
People say that recruitment has been bad. Has it? How do we know that it has? Until we have a new management team in place I don’t think we have any idea how guys like Ajeti might do. I don’t think we can write off anybody until we’ve had a shakeup in the coaching department. I think Ajeti, in particular, has shown flashes of quality.
The only way Hammond goes is if there’s a massive, and game-changing, restructuring going on of the entire football department, and to my mind that cannot happen until we have a new manager at the club. For our future to resemble the best of the past instead of the worst of it we need to do joined up thinking for once. The manager should have an input into who he works with. They will be a partnership and the manager needs to be comfortable with it.
There will be changes at Celtic; of that there is no doubt. There have to be, because I cannot imagine how we are going to sell season tickets as long as those who have presided over the current failure remain at the club. If Lawwell stays we’re only waiting for the next crisis to erupt, and even the next manager might not get a fair crack if he’s seen as a Lawwell appointment.
We cannot continue with business as usual.
But until we hear something official from the club – and it has to be soon – everything else is just speculation. The only people who really know what’s going on are at Celtic Park, and I cannot imagine that things at our club are as quiet as they seem.