As The Celtic Board Fails The Manager It’s Time For The Fans To Step Up.

There is a moment in the movie Wall Street when Budd Fox, the young up and coming broker, has given the slippery mogul and stock market legend Gordon Gekko some bad news.

Fox has gotten in the door in the first place because he was able to give Gekko a key piece of information about a stock that was going to go up. Now his own bet has lost Gekko money. Gekko, who always knows more than it seems and is aware of exactly how Fox came about his initial piece of info, caustically says “Well I guess your dad’s not a union representative of that company.”

Some people need their daddies to get on in life. Like our chief scout, one of the Strachan sons, who worked his way to a scouting job at our club from a golf shop. The head of recruitment at least managed not to wind up on the Celtic payroll up until now, but what a ghastly appointment that was, as this website predicted at the time to much scorn from others.

It would be nice to be able to reward family and friends by giving them gigs at the place where you work. I once got my sister a job working with me in the homeless hostels. She liked that public service role so much she parlayed in into a career in a related field and has done very well.

But I couldn’t have given her an executive job even if I’d held one myself, because in just about any organisation worth a damn that would have been subject to vetting and a process and a list of candidates would have been interviewed for the role.

That’s how shareholders are best served.

I don’t know what ours are doing standing back and watching this disgrace unfold.

The other day, The Celtic Trust picked this moment to appeal for members. This is the moment for a credible, focussed fan organisation to come to the fore, one that can command respect and bring people together. They are not it, not even close. If they have a coherent plan short of “standing with the Green Brigade” I have yet to hear it.

The Green Brigade themselves are the loudest voices in the stands; they have put this board until no pressure whatsoever. They would rather bang on about an ancient chapter in Irish history than they would fight for the wellbeing of this football club.

Did their return to the stadium come with a “no slagging the board” clause?

Because honestly, their voices should be critical here … and they are oddly silent.

Every single one of us has to do better than this.

Nobody can be looking at this board and believe that they are progressing this club at the moment. Every fan media outlet and every fan organisation, in fact every single individual fan, has to think about where we are and where we are heading.

Nobody can possibly think this window was a success. Nobody can possibly believe that this board does not have questions to answer about why the last two transfer windows were such a farce. We needed quality in the summer and we got 10 players but no first team starters.

We needed quality in this window – the manager was adamant about that – and we got one signing who he clearly wanted and a kid on loan from Norwich reserves who arrived last night via a club statement without Rodgers endorsement in it. Yet there are people who are trying to tell us that the manager is t he one responsible for this disaster of a window.

The stink of cronyism and nepotism reeks from every level of the football department; I wrote about that at the start of the week. The same applies to the upper executive.

We are run on behalf of a handful of people according to a decade old stratagem which becomes harder and harder to defend. The one year in which we had real success in signing first team ready footballers was under Ange, who decided not to use any of the current network at the club … what does the success of his first and second windows tell us when we compare them with the four after Lawwell junior was running things?

The numbers don’t lie, so let me present you with some.

He has signed 22 players in his tenure as head of recruitment.

Of that number two haven’t been here long enough to make a proper judgement.

Of the other twenty, only five – Mooy (who was Ange’s boy, and let’s not kid on about that), Jenz, Johnson, Palma and Bernardo – have been able to get into the team and hold down a place for any length of time. We decided against signing Jenz. Palma is in the side right now because Abada has been injured and Maeda is away. Bernardo is also in the side because there is no Reo Hatate at the moment, and perhaps not for some time to come.

Oh is a squad player but as soon as we have a better option he’s gone. Yang is a squad player and he’s currently third choice on both the left flank and the right. Nawrocki might be around a while and will probably be considered a success. I like Iwata and so does the manager, but Iwata definitely was an Ange Postecoglou pick as we all know full well.

The rest is just so much wreckage on the highway. Of all of them who remain at the club, only Alastair Johnson is a guaranteed starter, and he’s got that role because his backup will never challenge him for the first team place. Is he as good as Juranovic, who played in a World Cup semi-final?

Four transfer windows.

One player – one – who right now walks into the team every week and he’s got nobody to keep him on his toes or challenge for his place.

But then neither does Greg Taylor, Joe Hart or Kyogo, so perhaps that’s not a surprise.

22 players signed and we still need a goalkeeper, a left back and a decent 25 goal a season striker to challenge the starter who isn’t on form right now. We probably do need a backup right back and at least one more midfielder. Under this head of recruitment, what are the odds on filling any of those holes with quality come the summer?

If there is a common cause amongst the support, holding this board to account has got to be it.

We can start to put pressure on these people, or we can wait for a disaster which won’t help us but will give them a chance to appeal for unity whilst they pick another yes-man for the dugout and we start this cycle all over again.

Ask not what your club is doing for you, but what you can do for your club. This is the moment to decide … and remember; Noah built the ark before the rain.

I’d prefer that we didn’t wait for the disaster.

Yes, Noah not Moses built the ark. You try writing one of these with a pounding headache at 2:00am, see how many mistakes you make!