Last week, I watched the Netflix series Squid Game.
Not the Korean show (which of course is great!) which launched a thousand internet memes and spawned a million Halloween costume parties with people wearing PlayStation controller button masks, but the spin-off reality game where actual contestants compete in the challenges from the original show (and a few new ones) for a $4.6 million prize.
If you enjoyed the drama then it is worth your time. I really got into it, especially as they up the ante with some real psychological chess in the later rounds.
By the time there are 20 contestants left everyone is congratulating themselves on their skills in getting through; all of them were kidding themselves on. All of them were there on sheer luck.
Much of the game was based on it.
When you’re deciding your fate by picking a random box, or rolling dice or judging whether you go left or right when the wrong choice leads to elimination, you’re not playing a skill game. You’ve left your fate up to chance.
That’s what our board did in the summer.
They were hoping that the skills of the manager would be enough to get them through the season, based, I think, on a calculation that the Ibrox club would implode. Our board likes to gamble. It likes to roll dice. They tell themselves that they are “risk averse” but in point of fact, they are huge risk takers.
The strategy is good at what it does, up to a point. It takes skill to run this system, that and good managers. But it’s also risky, and they gambled on Lennon, and we ended up with a bunch of deadwood on our books and the surrendering of all three of our trophies. They gambled in Rodgers final summer last time he was here, and he walked out the door because of it.
These guys have spent years convincing themselves that what they do is all skill. But that’s deluded. It’s not the only delusion they labour under, but it’s a big one.
Like the Squid Game contestants who got to that final 20 they could not have done it without a certain level of skill … but a lot of it is down to pure dumb luck, and eventually, luck runs out.
When you buy project players you are rolling dice. That’s the bottom line. When a new manager comes into a club there is always a period of transition, and a period where he juggles with the team that he inherited. Our team was built for a certain style of football. The minute the man in the dugout changed, all that had to change too.
Rodgers identified his needs. They chose to gamble on what they thought he should have. None of these people have ever built a football team. None of them are qualified to do that job better than the man who is in charge of doing it right now.
They didn’t even consider the Asian Cup, that’s how out of it these people were, although they claim to be well aware of the competition and the drastic implications of it. You know who was definitely aware of it? The SPFL, who made sure the media knew they would postpone maybe one game if we asked them but no more than that.
And it is hard not to conclude that what they were betting on was that the Ibrox operation would continue to shamble from one disaster to the next.
That’s long been the game they’ve played at the top of Celtic, the “one step ahead of Ibrox” game. But the question that has always haunted us is this; what if Ibrox got its act together? Would our one step be enough? Or would we find, as is happening here, that one dip in form can close a gap fast?
There’s no question whatsoever that a failure to back the manager in January is more than just a crazy gamble now. The odds of failure are so unacceptably high that I don’t see any way they can deny Brendan Rodgers the players he wants – and that we need – and take their chances with February.
When the risks of that are so obvious, so clear, there’s nothing for it but for them to pony up the cash and give him his footballers.
Until Squid Game reached the last 20, I don’t think any of the competitors saw the money as being “real”. It was an abstract concept until then, until you could look around the room and recognise that, yeah, you really did have a chance to win it. And for some of them, that was the moment to be ruthless. For others, it scared them half to death.
Because rolling dice or tossing a coin or going left or right on gut instinct is easy … until it sinks in that that you really are playing for a potential jackpot with life-changing consequences.
The jackpot we’re playing for is a colossal Champions League fortune, and the reality that we’re now in a title race had better have sunk in with these people.
If our board thinks it can nickel and dime the manager in this coming window at the risk of that … that’s not good stewardship, that’s not real leadership, that’s betting the house on odd or even and if your spouse or other half even attempted to do that you’d drag them away from the table and into the nearest lawyer’s and you might think long and hard about the future.
We’ve all witnessed the poor summer transfer activity.
We’ve been embarrassed by the subsequent CL maulings.
No European progress as implied: it’s actually been worse.
We are underperforming in the SPL, and look vulnerable.
BR is getting flak now: losing the league title could finish him.
BUT, there must also be some accountability at the Board level.
Otherwise, next season it will be the same shit, and the same promises / lies
from an ‘ultra-conservative’ Board,
which is, IMO, actually suppressing growth and development of the club and brand.
Yes, we are doing well financially, but we should be doing so much better.
Progress in Europe = growth for the club, potentially to another level.
We have a global brand, hindered by a parochial Board, IMO. 🙁
Hit the nail right on the head
To quote Mötörhead:
“If you like to gamble
I tell you, I’m your man
You win some, lose some
It’s all the same to me
The pleasure is to play
Makes no difference what you say
I don’t share your greed
The only card I need
Is the Ace of Spades
The Ace of Spades
Playing for the high one
Dancing with the devil
Going with the flow
It’s all a game to me
Seven or eleven
Snake eyes watching you
Double up or quit
Double stake or split
The Ace of Spades
The Ace of Spades
You know I’m born to lose
And gambling’s for fools
But that’s the way I like it, baby
I don’t want to live forever
And don’t forget the joker
Pushing up the ante
I know you got to see me
Read ’em and weep
The dead man’s hand again
I see it in your eyes
Take one look and die
The only thing you see
You know it’s gonna be
The Ace of Spades
The Ace of Spades”.
It’s an unusual philosophy for a recruitment policy at a football club though….
If the board were as strait and up front as Lemmy we would be fine
They’re more likely to bring Lenny back than recruit a straight-shooter like Lemmy!
Peter lawell should NEVER have been allowed anywhere near the boardroom in any shape or form. The two seasons he was away was without doubt the most efficient celtic I’ve ever seen. Deals done before transfer windows were even open. We did some great business in the asian market but all the board saw was a way to make a quick buck. He’s been back in the door for just under a year and we’ve went backwards at an alarming rate. He needs removed from his position of power/influence as soon as possible. This season could very easily slip into the covid campaign no problem at all.
I was slated everywhere when I said Lawwell coming back would lead to a total reset of everything that happened when Ange was here.
Gives me no pleasure to say I told you so,like many others warned,as he will never take a place in the background.
Paranoia would have me thinking he’s trying to give Huns a financial leg up.
He has to be removed!
I just don’t get why Brendan Rodgers came back after his last tenure when he felt he had to leave because of an intransigent board,you would think when he agreed to come back he would have full backing of the board,this has not happened so who is to blame,was Brendan too trustworthy of the board,did they feed him a lot of bullshit that he swallowed,I just don’t understand what goes on with this board.
January signings are a waste of time.
It smacks of panic.
Who is going to hit the ground running?
Taylor and Johnston were a major influence in every game along with Kyogo under Ange but under BR?
The Scales experiment is over and Iwata can never fill the CalMac role.
Never start a game in Scotland without Kyogo as striker.
I wonder how many players failed to bust a gut on Sunday when they must be hearing Rogers go on about needing better quality. Is it going to be themselves out the door or is Rogers going to do an Ant and Dec and say, Mickey Johnston, it’s not you, Liam Scales, it’s not you etc. etc. Made enough chances during first twenty minutes to win easily but missed them with a few ballooned over from OH. Second half midfield got lost and panicky and needed Calmac to step back to settle them, I think this would have helped. How Phillips got 90 mins is beyond me, Scales has no idea how to move the ball forward and we have a keeper not so closed down this game, failing to come for cross balls from corner kicks. Is it any wonder confidence is at it’s lowest. The blame is too easily put on the wingers when really our midfield needs a complete overhall.
it was the celtic board who allowed a crooked criminal club to resurface in scottish football and all honours intact , they have stood by and oversaw the biggest crookery in world football appear in front of our eyes , 72 games without a sevco player conceding a foul within the penalty box ? without a challenge to this anomaly , when liewell undermined celtic , preventing the 10 , by giving lennon the managers job , bringing in barkass , to make the goalkeeper position the weakest point , therefore destroying any hope of the 10 , it can not come as a surprise that the same is about to happen again , and Rodgers can’t claim innocence either , we know money was part of the lure back , it’s what he settled for with these shams gives cause for worry
With Pedro the Hun as our chairman, what can we expect….
See ah think the real gamble that Pedro’s making is that he thinks he has Rogers over a barrel and he will just have ti accept whatever budget he’s given. I don’t for a second think that Pedro don’t hold a grudge against Rogers after his last time at the club.
And Rogers knows this, this is why he’s bein so explicitly vocal about what players he expects in January, since being less so last summer got him possibly 1 first team player (who has a loanee ahead of him at present).
Rogers clearly stating his need for 4 players is doing 2 things, letting us know who’s shafting us if we don’t get them, and also, it’s a part of an exit strategy, where he can leave, having clearly shown who lacks the ambition within Celtic park.
HH