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Once Again Ange Hits Out As The Media Tries To Paint Celtic As A One Man Team.

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Ange always does his best when talking to our media to be as genial and nice as he can be, but they do not make it easy for him to do that. Because he’s dealing, here, for most of the time with people who simply aren’t our friends, and they are too stupid to hide that.

Last season, when Kyogo got injured, the hacks tried to make it into a crisis. They are doing so again now with the injury to Cameron Carter Vickers. Are we a better team when the big lad is in the side? Without a shadow of a doubt, yes we are.

But we’re no more a one-man team here than we were in the last campaign. I think we need a new centre half in the summer; that much is probably clear to the manager himself. But we don’t need it because none of the rest of them are good enough. He’s the better player of the group, and we want someone on his level to partner him up.

This side is perfectly capable of getting results without him. The switch-off in the last few weeks was nothing to do with his not being in the side. We’ve been out of sorts for a few weeks, and he played in several of those games. This side isn’t as focussed as it should be because we’re now confirmed as champions. This was always going to happen.

Tired narratives like this one are the result of our having a journalistic class which is incapable of thinking in more than one dimension. Ange was scathing when quizzed on this at the weekend, and it’s another example of this guy having to deal with people who are far below his intellectual level. He studies the game for a living … they write gossip.

So of course they cannot properly analyse where we’re going wrong at the moment. But the boss knew, and he pointed out the facts.

“I guarantee you, 1000 per cent, it’s not just one player,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with Cameron Carter-Vickers. We have missed Cameron Carter-Vickers for games before. We have played Champions League football without Cameron Carter-Vickers. So that’s the easy thing to look at. We are not working as hard off the ball as we were prior to winning the title. That’s what happens.”

That’s the easy thing to look at, he said. Which is code for that it’s the lazy, stunted explanation for the simple minded – which means everyone in our press corps just about. Ange’s own description of where we are going wrong – not working hard enough off the ball – is much closer to the mark, and was clear at Ibrox where big Hartson described us as “passive.”

Passive is right. The players were not covering every blade of grass like they had been when there were still important points to put on the board. We might be able to excuse that and understand it, but that doesn’t mean that we have to like it and it’s pretty clear that the big man doesn’t like it one little bit. But he’s not going to rake anyone out over it.

I am comforted to know that he has identified the issue, and that he dismisses out of hand the idea that without Carter Vickers that we’re essentially sunk. The idea is nonsensical.

So too is the idea that this squad, which most of us acknowledge the strength of, isn’t as good as the manager thinks that it is. The people making that judgement simply are not qualified to give it, and especially the likes of Keevins and his braindead Clyde panel.

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  • Johnno says:

    More embarrassment from the Scottish media as usual.
    Always claimed that the keeper and CB partnership has to be the strongest within a team, as you tend to build your team from there.
    Is it just a coincidence that nearly every point dropped or defeat inflicted upon us this season, happened when that strength within the team wasn’t in place?
    Of course CCV is a huge part within that partnership, yet losses happened when he was in place also, admittedly within the CL.
    It still remains an area within the team that Ange will possibly address during the summer, along with a number of issues that have arisen over the past number of weeks.
    Our intensity in play was always going to drop off with nothing at stake, which in turn affects the way we like and want to play.
    Regardless of that, I wouldn’t say Ange has been to impressed with how cheaply we’re giving the ball away at present.
    Yet when we do turn it on in very limited periods at present, we can still produce them wonderful goals like the 1st one on Saturday and the 2nd wasn’t to bad either.
    Good team’s don’t suddenly become bad team’s overnight, and Ange I’m sure will address a number of issues to get improvement next season no doubt and squad depth will be one of the issues addressed I believe anyway

  • Michael McCartney says:

    ” He studies the game for a living they write gossip ” sums it up well James. The 4 games after the league is won will be long forgotten, whilst winning the treble will go into the football history records for good.
    I do hope that these 2 final league games will be taken a bit more seriously to be up to speed for the Cup Final. Let’s just enjoy the next two weeks and let Ange get on with his plans for next season.

  • Kevan McKeown says:

    No a one man team, that’s just tripe. Tho we need tae spend and get another CD in there with CCV, before the Champions League starts imo. Just sayin.

  • Michael Clark says:

    Of course Celtic don’t operate around any particular one player but here’s a thing. Celtic have what Martin O’Neil said was essential. Through the middle you have to have a good keeper, central defender midfielder and striker. For Celtic to succeed in the Champions league, we need another keeper. If any of the men through the middle are missing were in trouble Vickers, McGregor or Furuhashi. So if we are going to make any impact on the Champions league we’ll need to sign some quality or it’ll be a repeat of last year

  • JimBhoy says:

    The goals to win games have come from all over the team.

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