And so it begins, the final countdown, and here we are with a week of the transfer window to go when this window has been open for months. There is something to be said for final week deals. We make a lot of our transfer deals in the final week, but so, so very often we pay a price for not getting them done quicker. This week has been a case in point.
This has been an horrendous week to write about Celtic in. The cup defeat was only a small part of it. My angst started seven days ago with Brendan Rodgers’ press conference when he said the fateful words “I work with the players the club gives me” therefore eliminating the boards alibi for this window so far at a stroke. We all thought that Brendan was putting his own plans in place. Instead he suggested he was waiting for others to tell him what those plans were.
The whole week, then, has felt like one long grim slog up a steep hill. The next seven days will decide how all of us come to view this window, and for the remainder of this campaign at the very least, it will decide how we feel about this board and our current leadership.
I don’t think Peter Lawwell should be near the place. I don’t think his son should be in a senior position. Think of the conflicts of interest. If the son screws up, is daddy really going to sack him? What’s worse is that daddy has already screwed up, repeatedly, and nobody has sacked him. There is no real scrutiny, no communication with fans. No public company in any other field would allow this embarrassing excuse for leadership, accountable to no-one.
I’ve said before, regardless of what we’re doing on the pitch this is utterly indefensible. So, in many ways my mind is made up already about them. They continue to offer us nothing but more of the same. This football club is a business whose primary function is to buy players cheap and sell them on for a profit. The worst of it is, they continue to believe that they are responsible for the success of the footballing operation. What delusional fools they are.
I said last week that I had planned to do a piece on the power of the great film directors, and how their vision translated into Oscars and money. Friedkin was the guy I had in my mind but I could as easily have been talking about Scorsese, Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg, Beatty, De Palma, Schrader or any of the others from the New Hollywood era who made the studios fortunes whilst being second guessed and fought all the way.
These were the geniuses. The studio executives didn’t have a clue. They knew nothing about the movies they made, all they did was provide the money and the infrastructure. These are not small things, and enough of them poured good money into bottomless pits which produced nothing of any value, but when a movie succeeded it was nothing to do with the producers or the executives. It depended, mostly, on the skills of the directors.
For God’s sake, it’s why the Best Director Oscar is far and away the most coveted prize in the business. It is the key to fame, fortune and glory. It’s the ultimate accolade for a job well done and although they don’t have the control they used to have there’s a reason why the top directors are amongst the best paid people in the game.
That’s what managers are like. If they are the directors, then the players are the actors and actresses they assemble to take on the roles.
I’ll say it again; all the executives do is supply the money; in Hollywood they only very rarely interfere in the process of making the film although some of their suggestions in terms of casting, plotting and editing are legendry for how rank awful they are. A good director resists that stuff, sometimes fiercely because he knows better.
But football executives want to interfere all the time, and ours seem to think they can scout players and even create managers. Their job is to provide for the manager what he needs, and this lot now have a week to get their act together and do that.
They need to show that they actually have notion of this club as a Force in the game, not as some feeder team for other sides.
They have to show a level of ambition which does not make the manager feel like an actor who has wandered onto the wrong set.
He is not just another cog in the wheel.
He runs the show.
It is high time they realised that.
Lawwell Jnr has been exposed as not up to the job. Where is the succession planning? There doesn’t seem to be any. As far as I’m concerned, they can have as many “Projects” as they like, just make sure the first team is adequately staffed. This has not been done.
Back in June, Most fans if asked would have identified a striker, a LB and a goalkeeper as the priorities. Sure, Jota, Starfelt and Mooy leaving complicated this but of those 6 positions, only one has been filled.
IF the window slams shut next week, and we are still unhappy with signings,
then that’s on the Board, for confirming – yet again – its lack of footballing ambition.
IF we totally cock-up the CL Group games, and fail to secure 3rd place,
then that’s on BR, for confirming that he is nowhere near as smart as we
thought he was – to return to CFC without securing overall transfer signing control.
There’s also a bad whiff in the air again:
could we be in for a return of the ‘PL penny-pinching, late, late deal’:
a confirmed signing at about 11.50pm on Sept. 1st.? 🙁
Aye but is our manager running the show after his comments last week
I can’t believe BR is letting those above him using him as a patsy, I thought the only reason he came back was because he would have more control over players brought in , that’s the biggest disappointment. I wrote about putting profit before progress and a numpty asked where have I been, did he not listen to Ange, when he spoke about progress at home not Europe? More points, more goals, more clean sheets ect ect. Hail Hail
If they don’t provide in key areas within the next 7 days, they’re potentially and probably imo, sacrificin the whole season. Simple as that ! Some drastic moves need tae be made here and it’s no too late, no just yet. We’ll find out in the comin days where their ambition lies. Btw, ye forgot tae add Ridley Scott tae your list of directors there.
They can afford it but they won’t.
The Ange era was the exception, now we’re back to Moneyball with two Lawwells instead of just the one.
they have no ambition james….none at all….apart from maximum £’s for shareholders….and to keep the latest ibrox outfit a viable competitor….
fuck the board and fuck rodgers for accepting these terms…
The logic for Celtic remains fairly straightforward James.
We remain as the only club within Scotland to be worthy of a CL place, which in turn means we are the best in the country, with all the success achieved in recent years.
We simply haven’t pushed on due to the level of complacency within the board, with having Scottish dominance an acceptable benchmark for the club?
Don’t believe that is no longer an acceptable benchmark for the majority of the support, where the relevance of the scum has become 2nd nature to the majority nowadays and our 2nd prize is keeping the scum within there coffins.
The numbers for a CL squad are straight forward enough also, regardless of how big of a hindrance the 8 Scottish player remains to ourselves.
Currently we only have 1 player in calmac who is Scottish and worthy of starting a CL game, yet we have to depend on 7 others who could do a job for ourselves if required.
This means we are currently having to rely upon 17 players for CL matches to remain satisfied with a squad for the matches as such imo.
Course longer term injuries to key members of the squad has thrown a huge spanner in the works, yet there were existing issues that remained before these injuries becoming such a factor.
To think we remain struggling to find 17 players, when most team’s use 16 on match days, were there is a decent level of satisfaction is a disgraceful situation for our club to find itself in currently.
I can only conclude that the club has already written off our CL ambitions, and European football in general this season so far?
So is next season European campaign been built for and winning the SPFL a good enough target for this season?
Not in my book anyway, and a huge stink of complacency has emerged within the club yet again imo, and can’t see how such an attitude is going to end well for the decision makers and there foresight.
James been commenting on your blog for about 2 years and CONSTANTLY telling you about the board and now finally you’ve got the picture, but this reply will probably not be posted just like my last 3
Think back to that disgrace from October 2020 till Feb 2021 I could got much worse and all cause lawell hired a manager twice! That no big club or any club if note would give a job as a youth coach yep Lennon the fraud! But to m have him back as ” Charmain” ( non Executive) now dropped eh and his son overseeing his former unofficial role! Well on paper this even worse than what Brendan had to contend with first time! Long game we need this board out Fergus built 3 stands in 4 years in the next 25 they left that embarrassing main stand untouched! No well run real big club would have! 72,000 symmetrical ground should be done decades ago!! No BS about ” wouldn’t full it either the seats would be bought alright!! But under Desmond he doesn’t it seems to want to total leave the new huns in the distance! If we had real visionary and some fan representative on a much younger board none this garbage would be going on! Lawell remember was employed by the old board and history repeating itself somewhat with Desmond running things with puppets and smart arses like ” big Peter” you can just imagine his talk behind the scences cause the guy has treated us fans who are the club with sheer contempt since day he arrived and made himself a multi millionaire in the process ,he preyed on our trust and love of our club as at no other club in UK would he have got away it ! But he knows most of us are loathe to turn on the club we love. That man as should be nowhere near our club ever it’s disgusting he back,madness in many ways it truly is, we need change!
The problem we have James is that Celtic fans are too loyal for our own good,we would never let the team play a home game at an empty stadium,but maybe we should boycott a home game , even a European home game,how would that look at a televised match,it would certainly make our self righteous charlatans of a board sit up and take notice,but alas this board know our fans won’t do this so they are basically untouchable,we need to show this board we mean business otherwise they will continue to run roughshod over everyone,their only concern is how much money they can pocket out of Celtic football club.
Well put JD but let’s go the full hog and boycott the 3 game CL package ,sure not everyone will comply but maybe 20,000 empty seats would possible make these BRASS NECKED MONEY GRABBING TORY BASTARDS GET THEIR FINGERS OUT THEIR ARSE OR JUST GET TAE FCUK.
We definitely are asleep at the wheel, and we dared to slag sevco after their defeat at killie