There is no doubt that our club’s policy is to stay one step ahead of Ibrox but not much further. If we wanted to leave that club behind in the dust, we could probably do it. There are numerous theories as to why we don’t. The one I subscribe to is this; we look across the city and see chaos and mayhem. This is constant. It never seems to get less.
And because we do that, and because of what we see, we don’t take the threat of Ibrox seriously. The more I think they must get their act together at some point the more they do to convince me otherwise. That club remains a mess. In fact, it remains a shambles.
Yesterday, when I heard that their team went for a tour of the club museum to inspire them to be better, I was absolutely astounded. It is such a weak move. It stinks of desperation. I don’t know whether their board believes that’s good enough, whether that makes them feel more or less confident, but when your manager is resorting to that he’s out of ideas.
I cannot imagine what their players must have made of it. Did they lose a day’s training for that? How many of them made the obvious leap; if this club is so massive, if winning is so important, how come this low-brow fool is the manager here? Because nothing about him reflects the things he’s trying to tell them that their club represents.
Nothing about that club reflects the history they claim. Their board is of such poor quality. They talk about building bridges but continue picking fights over minor matters. Their spiteful handling of the Celtic ticket situation has convinced our board that they are reckless fools, and that does not inspire the belief that this is a club that should be taken seriously.
Their decision to dismantle their entire scouting department prior to putting in place a scheme to use analytics and data sounds like a leap forward; in fact, you need the scouting department to be in place first, and the analytics gets overlaid on top of that.
You cannot have one without the other, and you’d better be prepared to spend big on getting it to work. It also takes time to finesse. Which their club simply does not have the patience for.
They also need to take a lesson from our board that it probably best sometimes to ignore the noises coming from the fan-base. Our club is not always wrong when it ignores what the supporters are saying.
Because sometimes – on issues such as upping the stadium capacity, or building major infrastructure, or “working with” the fans on issues such as pyro – are either unworkable at the moment or just absolutely mental.
Their club panders to their supporters to a shocking degree. What’s worse is that it panders to the craziest elements of their fanbase most of all. The ticket standoff is a consequence of that. Their penchant for sacking managers is a consequence of that.
Any boss who comes in there is going to need time. Any proper rebuild would have taken longer than a single summer. Nothing they do over there will ever take a long-term view when they react to every screaming fit on the forums.
But most importantly, that club needs to stop fixating on us and focus on being all it can be.
That means facing down their own fans and levelling with them. There is a distinct possibility – a probability – that by acting reflexively and in the short term for the past decade that Celtic will overtake even the Lie and achieve the status of most successful club in Scottish football. We’re poised to rip it from their grasp … their fans might have to live with that.
Selling them on that will be nearly impossible. Convincing them that growing their own club in the right way, rather than trying to catch up, will certainly be impossible. Their fans don’t want to hear that, but that is what their club has to do.
I don’t want Ibrox to get itself together, but nor do I want our board to operate on the principle that as long as they don’t, we don’t have to push too hard to be the best club that we can be. We, too, seem to be more short-term in our thinking than that.
Don’t get me wrong, we are entirely correct in our assessment of them as little more than a joke. But we should be striving to leave them far behind us, and to my mind we don’t. It is high time that changed.
When it does, nothing they do will ever bridge the gap. That should not be our policy. Our policy should be so far ahead of that. It just so happens however that it will be one of the benefits.
Which to my mind is all the more reason to do it.
You say that Celtic are happy to be one step ahead of that lot. Which is more down to their incompetence rather than Celtic willfully making sure they are better. Look at the Ibrox match for example. Yes, we won and deservedly so. But what if the Roofe goal had stood? Can we, without fear of contradiction, say that we’d have come away with at least a point?
I am not so convinced that the Celtic board have any sort of strategy other than to focus on project players for a profit. I do not believe that they act in the interest of the fans who want to see Celtic do some damage in Europe.
I don’t think they are complacent. Just short sighted and greedy.
All the time we have that parasite Lawwell anywhere near our great club we will be tied to the scum from lbrox.
Along with the golf fanatic who can’t be arsed paying us the respect of attending an AGM once in a,dare l say it,blue moon.
We have our very own Statler(he even looks like the Irish Billy Goat) and Waldorf who put their Old Firm Franchise ahead of absolutely everything to the detriment of our great club and support and also to their eternal shame.
They will not be remembered well when they are finally gone from Paradise.
Yep – I for one want to get ahead of them in The Lie (even though we all know the truth (115 v 2)…
We have been ahead of them in This Lie before (when it was an actual truth) but just not in my lifetime, and that’s why I was annoyed that we were both cheated and shot ourselves in the foot by going out of The League Cup this season as they’ll probably win it to add to the lie…
I don’t know wheather I’m in the majority or the minority of Hoops fans here but overtaking this lie is of more importance than third in The Champions League as we ain’t winning that anytime soon – Just getting to the groups is fine for me as that means that we are League Champions again, but a Scottish Cup and League Cup would’ve been oh so very handy this season, but it’s not to be…
Hopefully we overtake The Lie in Season 2024/25 !
PL and DD believe a tight two horse race, even if that’s between two mediocre sides is a sure stadium sell out every week,and with champ league group money a good dividend is job done. History is important and so is our reputation. We rely on passed glories and tarnish our name every season now but as long as we make a profit then everything is good according to our board. The old firm is alive and kicking.
The whole issue remains as a Scottish football problem, not just one that exists within the scum currently.
How many players overall have been bought into just SPFL teams during the summer?
A ridiculous amount, possibly over 100 between 12 team’s?
How many are just loan signings?
What was the overall cost spent on so many players?
I don’t know the answers, but certainly highlights just what a shocking state Scottish football remains in keeping itself within.
Nearly every club outside of ourselves are trying to operate upon a season by season plan without any vision beyond it, because there isn’t one in place.
5 guaranteed spots were available to Scottish club’s this season, with 2 filled in failure within there original competition, so having to drop down.
With such a lame structure still in place within Scotland, then the improvements required for a longer term vision just isn’t going to happen.
Get the recruitment of players totally wrong as the scum have done to date, and the potential concern is that it can take many years to put right the problem that’s been created.
The scum find themselves in that situation currently, so who is left to try and get a tune out of broken instruments now.
Depending upon a conductor who’s stone deaf?
Ourselves on the other hand continue to build.
Maybe not to the liking of the present, but certainly work has already been undertaken with next season in mind, with the expansion of the CL and the extra squad depth that will be required to match the demands, that will never change within our club.
Ange had a process where he was so reliant upon 16 players, which is never going to be enough within today’s game, with the increased number of matches top players are expected to be involved in.
As a club we understand and see what is happening, where we aren’t too far away from actually nearly having to have 2 teams in place, to actually combat the demands upon players and trying to keep them fresh for the challenges over the course of a season.
Sometimes as supporters we don’t tend to look at the whole bigger picture, when we remain so focused on wanting our strongest 11 available for every game.
Just not going to happen when squad depth is the real winner for team’s within today’s game. where the money involved has turned it into the product that football is today.
We remain as the only club that can operate in the circumstances that have been created within European football including Scotland, yet receive no credit for able to manage in doing so.
We as a club have outgrown Scottish football years ago and currently highlighting the vast problems that remains within the Scottish game.
We never created the problem, yet remain the only club prepared to challenge the problem that exists.
Sevco is a very poor vehicle for the supremacist fantasies of their trailer trash clientele. The Celtic board have the very recent precedent of a closed upper tier and dwindling attendances as to what a hun-free existence looks like, and will be content with only the mildest variety of “Espanyolification” rather than totally destroy them and run the risk of “Linfield-isation”. It pains me to say it, but all the evidence indicates that our own fanbase drops off when there isn’t an iBrox club around. There appears no club in Scotland willing to or capable of challenging us other than them – even in their absence McInnes’ Aberdeen may have regularly finished second but they were only playing at a title challenge and were getting scudded in the head to head games. The board are stuck between a rock and a hard place in a lot of ways.
This gap will occur naturally now.
They are in it so deep they can’t smell it anymore.
As the gap between our football revenue expands the limit on what they can spend decreases year after year.
Thats the rules now.
If we buy tsome of the cream of youth talent and are able to sell most a profit and find a few gems..
Our “football” revenue increases and we have more to legally spend under FFP regulations.
The are in a downward spiral and they know it.
What else can the Ibrox board do BUT pander to their Delusional fans,its they who supply the butter for the stale bread.
a see a problem with that argument James. To leave them way behind in our slipstream is going to require better players than we have currently. Is that likely to entice the quality we want even allowing for champions league involvement. Would these improvements want to hang around if domestic success came easily but with no real breakthrough in Europe. A want them dead and buried but ultimately we have to be realistic and strike a balance between obtaining superiority domestically and the financial outlay for europe and what actual rewards this presents
This board are a total disgrace lead by Lawwell who is nothing more that a Desmond placeman to make sure dividends and bonuses roll in for the Tories running our club. We are not a bank but are run like one where profit comes first before anything else,we will not move on till these clown’s are gone.Look at this season we are going into Europe weaker than last year, nothing but a bunch of project signing’s with very little experience at this level and loan’s, well seeing Lawwell is back in building waiting till last minutes to sign player’s to save a few quid.
MB: “Look lads at all the silverware we purchased as Sevco (Scotland) Ltd. And, over here, the legendary Bill Struth Book of Tactics. Now get out there and kick the ball in the net.”
Our board should build when they are weak. Barrowfield, Hotel, Celtic Store, all enhanced infrastructure for future gains. Can someone expand on why our board is holding on these and treading water? Cheers
At least the Sevco board built a museum probably with bar facilities etc Our board talk a good talk ie The Hotel ,a new Ticket Office ,a Museum,and what about the private investors who have planning permission to build a new bar facilities the name I think has something to do with the past railways that passed besides Celtic Park in Kinnlock Street and 20 million being spent upgrading Barrowfield ,I’ll hold my breath on that one ,our board needs younger people with plenty of ambition,but with these old timers on the board who quite frankly need to retire,and that includes Desmond ,Lawell,Wilson ,etc nothing will change,makes you wonder which one is supposed to be skint