Warren Zevon’s Finishing Touches opens with the lines “I’m getting tired of you, you’re getting tired of me, and it’s the final act of our little tragedy.”
That about sums it up although the later lines “thanks anyway, no use hanging around” fit better.
Today was the doing at Ibrox I’ve feared all season long.
Because the ineptitude at every level at Celtic Park this season has been frightening.
The players who won everything in their path chucked it many weeks, if not months, ago and this is the shameful way that this squad breaks up; surrendering, meekly, on the end of a serious beating that could have been worse.
In many ways, I wish it had been because the lethargy and the lack of application and the sheer length of time it takes our club to do anything was perfectly encapsulated by that display and I fear that even now it will not shake the place to its foundations as it should.
It’s as if the attitudes in the boardroom and on the pitch have now merged to create one unfolding shambles where we’re too slow, too slack, unprepared, demotivated, running on empty.
Rumours buzz about a series of announcements in the coming week; our club is going to have work damn hard, a lot harder than it is working right now, and damned well, a lot better than in has in the last couple of years, if we’re going to recover in time to mount a challenge next season far less grab back the brass ring.
The sheer scale of this still hasn’t sunk in for some people yet.
There are people at Celtic Park who still have defenders when it is perfectly clear that they should have been run out of town on a rail.
If this was any other business in Desmond’s empire heads would have rolled already; we wouldn’t have seen the managerial situation dragged out until February when it was way too late and Lawwell wouldn’t be getting another two months to leech off of us pretending that he has answers to the problems he created.
That man has claimed the credit for every success we’ve secured, even those which we secured in spite of him. It is scandalous that he has not departed already, and owned up to his role in this disgrace.
I wholeheartedly believe he is the reason we’re in this mess.
I know he believes that such criticism is unwarranted; his Warren Zevon song of choice is clearly Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me, the anthem of the hard-done by. To me, the lyrics that sum him up best are from one of Warren’s finest songs; “If I could only get my record clean, I’d be a genius.”
The thing is, after the surrender of all three of our trophies and the humiliation of this league season, Lawwell will never get his record clean. This is how he’ll be remembered.
And this is how the team will be remembered in a lot of ways, not for the way they built their reputations as winners and champions but for the shocking way they lost them.
They went down without a fight.
These are their ratings after that shameful display.
Bain
As with the “manager” if you haven’t seen enough yet you’ve not been looking. Dreadful for the second goal and suspect for the third and the fourth. If he’s the answer then someone is asking the wrong question. We have a £6 million keeper sitting on the bench; I refuse to believe he is worse than Scott Bain. I refuse to believe it. We have wasted an international footballer to persevere with this guy and surely if Eddie Howe is watching this he has already put a goalkeeper on his list of priorities. It is a critical one.
4/10. I’ve watched as much of this guy as I can handle.
Kenney
Awful. Too many slack passses, too many weaknesses as a defender. You could make allowances for him by saying that he’s a victim of Kennedy’s incomprehensibly awful tactical set-up but why waste our time on it? This guy isn’t worth even thinking any further about. Keeping him at Celtic Park one minute beyond the end of this dire campaign would be an extra minute too many. He’ll return to England as just another failed experiment.
5/10. He’s lucky he gets that, to be honest.
Taylor
A Kilmarnock player who should have stayed there. This is who we bought to replace Kieran Tierney. A damning indictment on the whole club but in particular Peter Lawwell and his “scouting department” who’s remit of “do more with less” is surely at the end of its own shelf-life and should hopefully depart the club when they all do. Greg Taylor sums up the systematic weaking of this team. We never replace quality with quality and this is the result. Limited is not the word for it.
5/10. A second rate footballer and whilst I can’t fault him for being what he is, he doesn’t get a pass for it either.
Welsh
Bad day at the office, and that fourth goal will haunt him. Yet he still put in a shift. Has a lot to learn and when he’s no longer playing in a back line of cowards and guys going through the motions we’ll finally see what he’s got.
5/10. Hard to judge him in this current line-up. Has some faults, and looked all at sea when Defoe ran at him, but good coaching and some decent players around him should make a big difference there.
Ajer
The midfielder again showed today that he can’t defend. His gutless about-face from Morelos cost us the second goal and his positioning is suspect for the first. Look at his pitiful attempt at heading the ball at number three. He loves to take the ball and go on wee mazy runs up the pitch. That’s what a midfielder does. A. Midfield. Player. Note to the next manager who employs this guy; AJER IS NOT A DEFENDER. His weaknesses in that area of the pitch are obvious. He can’t time a tackle. He can’t header a ball. His positional sense is non-existent.
4/10. For his defending. 7/10 whenever he has the ball at his feet. There’s the clue.
McGregor
Day to forget. Look aggressive and hungry, then he got booked and for reasons passing understanding gave the ref the gift he’s been waiting his whole young life for. Disastrous and the worst is that his stupid clumsy lunge didn’t even prevent the attack which led to the first goal. No player is more in need of spending time in the stand so maybe this will do him good. But the moment he made that challenge the game was gone, because nobody believed that Kennedy would be able to salvage something with ten men. Nobody, and I include his own players.
2/10. Let’s just erase this one from our collective memories.
Brown
The last hurrah and he went out with a whimper. The inevitable end to a glittering career. How many times did this website warn that unless Brown was rotated out of this team that he risked being remembered as a creaking old warrior being forced into a battle too many? Kennedy, in his own desire to play “the strongest team” every week, for his own sake, kept on putting Brown in there and our aged captain, who’s bags are already packed, turned in the performance Ibrox has been waiting a decade for. I blame the management team entirely for this shabby ending to a career that deserved better, but Brown himself doesn’t escape the lash for that.
4/10. A shocker today, and rightly hooked. Should have come much, much sooner.
Forrest
Had one flash of brilliance, but nowhere near enough. Suffered in part for the gutless managerial decision making and the atrocious tactical choices, but should have worked harder and done more.
5/10. Not enough by a long way.
Turnbull
Worked hard. Passes the ball great. When in a Celtic team which actually moves off the ball he will be a potent weapon. Another who suffered from the manager’s dire tactical choices. But still showed in little flashes what a talent he has.
6/10. Was probably our best player on the day. Which isn’t saying much.
Elyounoussi
Oh what might have been. A superb shot which looked like it had McGregor beaten to the world, and unlucky with Forrest’s superb cross into the box later on in the game. Elyounoussi will remain one of the great enigmas of the last two years. Played in a variety of positions, and in Neil Lennon and John Kennedy’s teams and not those of good managers who know where to utilisie him best, his two years at the club have been immensely frustrating because it is obvious that he is a fantastic technical footballer capable of brilliance … but he played under the wrong two people at this club and will be remembered for days like this one.
6/10. Still worked hard and showed in little flashes … I would have loved to have seen him in a better team under half decent coaches.
Edouard
Scored a goal from pure instince but lazy, off the pace, another non-trier performance. Still, the decision to hook him for Mikey Johnston summed up Kennedy’s dire display in a nutshell. Edouard has become one of those players we frankly will not miss. I am tired of him, and was tired of him long before today. The sooner he goes and we count the money the better.
5/10. Barely broke a sweat. He must be proud of himself.
John Kennedy
Shocking. I published a piece at half time saying that he should be seen off the premises at the end of the campaign, never to return to Celtic Park in any capacity. A dreadful day nad he doesn’t even deserve a score for it. A selfish man for all his alleged sacrifices for this club. Over-promoted, massively over-rated and done, done, done, done, done. Get him and Strachan out of the club when this season finishes because these cannot be the only failures in the football department to keep their jobs.
0/10. Zero. Nada. Nil. Pack your boxes up and beat it.
Substitutes:
Soro
Looked more deserving of a place when he came on that Brown looked the whole day. That Kennedy has used him so sparingly is frankly disgraceful. He will be a big part of the team next year unless Lawwell has one last “screw you” for the supporters. He is getting blamed in some quarters for the fourth; there was nothing wrong with the pass except that the player on the receving end of it was too lazy to go for the ball. It will be harsh to blame that on Soro.
5/10. Didn’t have a lot to do but didn’t do badly when he did.
Christie
Came on but you hardly noticed it. Can go anytime he likes but I’m not blaming him for today at all because he was a victim of Kennedy’s decision making and “tactic” in the second half of putting every man behind the ball. Chrisite was denied any chance to play an attacking game. I think he’s shot it at Celtic. I won’t miss him any more than I will Edouard.
4/10. If you hadn’t known we brought him on you wouldn’t have known we brought him on.
Johnston
Good to see Mikey back in the team. The decision to bring him on for Edouard actually drew the only laughter of the day in my house. Kennedy should have been ushered out of the dugout and put in a taxi for that decision alone. That we then played with every man behind the ball shows that our gutless stand-in was only interested in self preservation at that point so we barely saw what Mr Johnston can do. But we know he’s a good player and it’s good that he’s back fit.
4/10. Not on the pitch long enough or got involved enough to tell us anything.