This Team Of Charlatans Never Showed Up For Celtic Today.
You cannot go from winning four trebles in a row to that cowardly, inept surrendering of the final trophy of what was meant to be an historic and momentous campaign without having to face a harsh verdict from history.
That’s what awaits this team today.
The most dominant team in the recent history of the game in Scotland folded today like a bad card player holding a bum hand. It crumpled like a cardboard box left out in the rain.
Everything I expected to see from them today was absent, and most notable of all was that sense of pride in what they had done prior to this season, which was nowhere to be seen.
Every member of that squad should feel a sense of embarrassment and even shame after that display.
I am loathe to give pass marks to one of them, even young Welsh, who did nothing terribly wrong but who cannot be spared the damnation lest he come to believe that a surrender on this scale is somehow acceptable if you give the bare minimum of effort to the cause.
That was a disaster on an epic scale, mirroring the greater disaster at the club itself which has unfolded over this season, but where the roots lie in one of the most disgraceful decisions ever taken by the board of directors of a major institution, the one that paved the way for this regression, this utter disintegration, this collapse into ruin.
I refer, of course, to the shower scene from Hampden, which has inspired more nightmares than the one from Psycho now by many degrees of magnitude and is gorier by far.
That team is done.
That was not a Celtic performance today; that was a team of imposters posing in Celtic shirts. They have gone from being the most potent, lethal, side in Scottish football, from being a winning machine, to this in the space of a single campaign. It damns them and it damns those inside Celtic whose fingerprints are all over it.
Desmond, Lawwell and Bankier, this is your legacy.
This is the campaign for which you’ll all be remembered. This utter disaster. This meltdown. This calamity. And the next campaign starts in just over two months and we don’t even know who the manager is going to be.
Shame on all of them, from the boardroom down.
What follows are my individual ratings for the players today. As I said, pass marks are hard to come by.
And some of them ought never to pull on the shirt again.
Bain
There is nothing of note to say about Bain, because the Ibrox club didn’t test us as much as they could have, but he is not the answer even in the short term. It is unconsionable that we have persisted with him and written off a full international who cost us £6 million. That should have been a sacking offence for the whole of the coaching staff on its own.
6/10 but on another day could have been lower.
Kenney
Disastrous performance. Absolutely disastrous. Solid and unspectacular I said last week; today he was not solid and he was spectacular only in how spectacularly bad he was, both defensively and coming forward. He lost his man for the opening goal, put the second in his own net and gave the ball away far too many times. A shocker.
3/10. And he’s lucky he got that. Do not waste another minute wondering if he will, or should, stay.
Laxalt
The day that decided his future in a Celtic shirt. He doesn’t have one. Return him to Milan at the end of the campaign without even a thank-you. He has worried me for months, because we were still having the debate about whether he’s a better player than Greg Taylor, a debate which should never have been had and which is now over. Taylor is a better player, which isn’t saying much because he’s not exactly brimming over with class himself. Laxalt was hooked at half time, which was about 30 minutes too late. Dreadful.
2/10. Not a chance in Hell of us seeing him back next season, and I’m glad about that.
Welsh
Will be haunted by his miss, but he has nothing to feel bad about. A good performance again; this kid does not rattle. When he actually has a central defender next to him and not a converted midfielder, we’ll see how good he really is. He is one of the few to get a decent grade today, but I’m keeping it in moderation because he cannot think that performances like this, from the team, are acceptable. I’m sure he is hurting. He has a big future ahead of him at our club. I hope he keeps his head up.
7/10. Commendable performance on a rank rotten day.
Ajer
A midfielder playing at central defence and it shows. Every defensive header was won by his partner. Every single one. At the other end of the pitch we had umpteen chances from set pieces and he contributed nothing whatsoever. A ball through the middle catches him more often than not. Balls from the wing show how exposed he is without a defender’s awareness. This experiment has run its course. When it ends, with his departure, I hope we never again see it repeated.
6/10. Not terrible, but ordinary. And he needed to be much, much more.
McGregor
His regression scares the Hell out of me because he is, on his day, one of the best midfielders in Britain. It is a long, long time since we saw him play at that level and with that conviction. I would build the team around this boy, and always said he is our one unsaleable asset. We have a big decision to make on him in the summer, because he’s a shadow of the footballer we know he can be. More in need of a new manager and new thinking than any other player in the team. He was … not good this afternoon.
5/10. He gets that for the sheer number of mistakes he made, way, way, way too many.
Brown
The best man in the Celtic midfield. Let that sink in for a moment. He has proved that he still has something to offer us even as a squad player, but of course that’s over with because our abysmal upper management has left the whole club in limbo and he was not going to stand for that. But you know what? I don’t think he proved on-field leadership today at all. He didn’t gee up his team-mates. He didn’t shout at them or demand higher standards. He turned in a reasonable display but is no longer interested in being the voice of the fans on the field. He’s checked out, in other words, and I understand why but won’t condone it.
6/10. He should have grabbed this one by the throat and a few of those non-triers out there as well.
Chrisite
He thinks he’s an EPL footballer in the way some people believe they are Napoleon Bonaparte resurrected in the body of a guy who works in the local chip shop. A player who a combination of dreadful coaching, dreadful advice from agents and greedy familiy members and his own belief in his own hype has taken backwards at an alarming rate. Had he been this player when our scouts first spotted him at Inverness we would have left him there. A complete no-show today except for on those occasions when he was giving away the ball.
2/10. Absolutely woeful. Right now, he would be no loss to us whatsoever.
Turnbull
Huffed and puffed but could not blow the house down. The manager’s decision to utilise a narrow system where the Ibrox players just crowded him out was shocking and contributed to his most ineffectual display in a Celtic shirt. A poor day from him, but he remains one of our brightest assets. He just couldn’t impose himself on that one today, and the lack of movement from some of those around him contributed to the poverty of the performance.
6/10. Which is generous, but he wasn’t terrible.
Elyounoussi
The proof that he has nothing to offer us long-term. But for a few flashes of a footballer he might as well have stayed at home this afternoon. An immense talent, but unfulfiled so far in his career. He needs to get the next move 100% right for him but I fear that it will not be at Celtic Park and nor should it be.
5/10. He gets that because he is a great footballer who only rarely shows up and this wasn’t one of the days.
Edouard
An absolute waste of a jersey. A fraudulent performance. A complete non-trier. Lazy, disinterested, lacking in heart, selfish, gutless and the object lesson in what a footballer looks like when he’s chucked playing for your club. On those occasions where the ball was put into space in front of him, he jogged after it like a guy in the park. He checked in today but didn’t give a shit. An embarrassing display which should end his Celtic career. If I had been in Kennedy’s shoes I’d have subbed him after the penalty and told him to take off the shirt before he left the pitch, in the sure knowledge that he would never wear it again in a competitive game.
0/10. Honestly, I’ve had it with this guy. Get him out the door as soon as the new manager is in.
Taylor
Did more than Laxalt, and his little was enough to have him finish well clear of him on his score. But he is not the long-term answer and nobody can realistically believe that he is. An SPL level player who good coaching could improve but alas not enough for him to be of the required standard on which we can rely.
6/10. Which is generous. But his last-ditch tackle on Aribo stopped this from being worse.
Griffiths
Nothing of note or consequence to say or write. Had his chances at the club and has blown them. All of them. If it didn’t leave us in such dire straits I’d let him go right now, no questions asked. But the scary thing is that we might need this guy.
4/10. Not enough time to make a mark but has probably had enough of it overall.
Ajeti
Ajeti, we hardly knew you. Too little time to have the remotest influence, but because we know he’s the only striker with more than a 50/50 chance of still being at the club next season he ought to have earned a starting berth in the remaining friendly matches, which is exactly all they are, and especially as Edouard should never pull on the shirt again.
4/10. We still don’t know what we have here and we need to find out soon.
John Kennedy
His chances of being manager are now dead and buried. Inept tactical system, he was incapable of reacting in a way that made the least difference to the game and he persisted with a couple of players – like Edouard – way too long when they were clearly not at the races and not interested in pulling us up and out of the hole. He has improved us, but only slightly. He has as poor a grasp of the tactical side as Lennon does, and although we look fitter and a little sharper that’s not good enough. Basic coaching wise, he has taken us forward … as a manager we’re nowhere and we will be nowhere until we know who the permanent boss is going to be.
3/10. His tactical abilities are virtually non-existent.