Sometimes there are no words. Sometimes none are necessary. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position where things can go unsaid.
The nature of this job means finding the words even when that isn’t easy and sometimes it means saying things you don’t particularly want to say. Especially on a night like this, when I want to forget Celtic even exists and tune in to something else.
But that’s a cop-out and I won’t do it..
Recently, I watched an incredible film on Netflix; Society Of The Snow.
It’s remarkable, the story of the rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes mountain range and who survived appalling conditions in a white hell-scape for two months before two of the party walked across mountains to find help. It’s inspiring, and it’s a reminder of what we can do as human beings even when things seem at their most grim.
So it’s no surprise that I feel curiously detached from anger and even disappointment tonight, that I actually just want to put this aside for a while and not think about Celtic. I’ve reached the point where part of my brain knows that we’re a better team than this, that Rodgers is a better manager than he’s showing and that there’s a long way to go … but a deeper part of me understands that those things ultimately might not matter.
And I sense that the part of me which already said in these blogs already this season that this one was starting to unravel was way ahead of the part which wanted to hope for a happy ending.
I don’t like getting up every day and being pessimistic, but I’d be kidding if I denied that the leaden feeling in my gut that we’re watching an unfolding disaster has been there this whole time and hadn’t gone away. I’ve tried optimism; if you’ve read the recent pieces you know I stuck with it even after a lot of other people had chucked it.
I still hope for a happy ending. I even see a road by which we might pull it off, but in the parlance o US electoral politics, the paths towards victory are closing off one at a time. It’s no longer obvious how we’re going to get there. I am not convinced our rivals are that good, but I’ve never been completely convinced we had it in us, and all they have to do to win it now is what I’ve always accused our board of doing … they only have to be one step ahead of a team which hasn’t just taken a backwards step but is falling over its own feet.
So, I realise now that just as some of those boys in the Andes early on realised that it was crazy to hope for a rescue that very obviously wasn’t going to come and started to mentally prepare for what they might have to do in order to survive, I realise I’ve already been mentally preparing myself for a day just like this, and I know that because of the emotions that aren’t there.
One of the analogies I’ve used in previous pieces, at other times, concerns a chapter in Tom Clancy’s novel The Sum Of All Fears called Three Shakes.
The entire chapter takes place over the aforementioned “three shakes” – a span of time measuring milliseconds. It describes the mechanics of a nuclear explosion and if that sounds hopelessly geeky then I assure you it is and that you’re right, but it’s always been interesting to me because, of course, that complex series of reactions leads to one momentous outcome and because Clancy ends the chapter by saying that in strictly scientific terms everything that will happen has happened already … in other words, that’s the explosion.
Everything which happens next flows directly from it. The main event has already finished. All that comes afterwards are consequences.
That’s where we are right now.
The sequence of mistakes and misjudgements and the internal mechanisms which will decide this title have already happened, and that’s the worst realisation of all but strangely enough it’s also the knowledge that enables me to detach somewhat from tonight. We can blame individual errors from the boss and from the players, and we can pick our scapegoats but the truth is that the explosion has already happened and we’re now seeing the effects.
We’re where we deserve to be and where this season has been heading since the summer transfer window shut. We got one chance to alter its trajectory and wasted it.
But we’re here because of the choices the people who run Celtic have made, and those choices were made a while ago. Today has been inevitable since Mark Lawwell was brought to this club to enact the strategy Daddy and his cronies had decided on. The average cost of a player in this Celtic team is about £2 million. There is no quality in depth.
The manager was doomed from the moment he sat and told the media that he would work with what they gave him. That was the moment that started the detonation and we’ve been watching the slow motion version of it. The closure of the January window and the fury we all felt was the last of the Three Shakes. And there’s no further point in trusting to hope.
These people have not allowed Rodgers to build his own team. They’ve thrown random players at him and told him to do something with them … no manager could do it. It’s not just incoherent, it’s self destructive, and we’re now locked in because the window’s shut, there is no further mechanism open to us to change course … and now the consequences are all that are left.
And whilst I’ll hope for the best I’m mentally resigned to the worst now.
I’m mentally adapting to the idea that this season is gone … and you know what? I can do that, I can let this go, because when you are in the midst of a disaster and you know help isn’t coming you can start to deal with the reality of it and that reality is that we either start thinking about how we can save ourselves – in short how we can save next season, realising that it’s too late for this one and that we’re going to have to deal with a lot of appalling consequences from that … or we can write off the next one as well and God knows what after that.
In terms of the here and now, if this season goes the way it’s looking the manager cannot possibly survive and his will be the first head to roll, and he’ll deserve it for leaving his future and this campaign in the hands of people who think they are beyond reproach and won’t ever be held to account – more on that tomorrow, you better believe it.
But our problems, and they are big problems, don’t start at his office door and they certainly do not finish there. The rain is coming. It’s not yet here, but we better start building the ark. If we wait for it we can kiss off more than just this title.
An absolute mess which has been coming for some time, taxi for Brendan and he can take Kyogo with him an absolute waste of a jersey I don’t care what his record is he has downed tools, there are others but what’s the point, a 9 point swing since they sacked beale not acceptable, we will win nothing.
The team is not good enough players bought for projects or 2nd rate and it shows just very poor the whole style of Rodgers play is so poor side way passing slow build up just poor all round has been all season. We as fans just hoped it would get better in fact it got worse this team has gone and Rodgers is yesterday man he will go before the end of the season total shit show from everyone Desmond lawells and co.
Hard to have any confidence now, we are a busted flush,from a treble last season to this.If the huns win out the cl money will a game changer, they could dominate for yrs, its obvious many of the players are not up to it.The Celtic board has handed the title to the huns, you could not make it up
God help George Square. That’s all I have to say because the game’s a fucking bogey.
Great article, the only thing in our favour is that this Rangers team is nearly as bad as ours so who knows. Not optimistic because we are hopeless, hardly any any players with talent.
Optimism has been sucked from us since the day he was appointed.
That isn’t a bad team we have you don’t get that bad over the course of 6/7 months.
Rangers acted quickly and sorted their season! We could easily do the same and admit it’s an expensive mistake and save the season but that’s never going to happen with that board in charge because when are they ever at fault?
Rangers don’t have a good team but they’ve got a manager they believe in and that’s the important part, we don’t.
No manager should survive a 10 point swing.
The average cost of a Celtic player is £2m,,,what’s the average cost of a killie player,,??
How many warnings did we ignore through these last 6/12 months allowing those from across the road to heal and rebuild instead of standing on their necks and destroying them . Same old board as before. They need THE rangers That’s there motto
By nature I am not a person who wishes anyone harm, but when I see what is going on at the club I have supported for the last 70 years it is very difficult not to.
Lawwell is a cancer at our club. He aggrandises himself at its and our expense .Better for all if he were not there. His malign influence pervades everything.
He and his kind and kin get richer while the club gets poorer by the day in every respect.
At the moment I feel about him the same way I do about Trump, Netanyahu, Putin and Johnson and the rest of the parasites and users and bad people who place their own interests above all else.
I will stop now before I say something I will regret and which would damage me, and I will not allow this creature to cause me to do this harm to myself.
If you ever read this Lawwell, this is what I think of you.
Let’s sack the manager the highest calibre of manager we could expect to get and get someone Liewell is only capable of attracting like an ex player or a Ronnie. We need a clear out from the TOP before getting to the manager
Well , lawwell reaps what he sows , it’s no coincidence the same time he reappears the club ends up in dissaray, same as 10 in a row, he slithered off after that unforgiving debacle.
Well history is repeating itself and 2 shite transfer windows later with lawwells interference and meddling has left the team in a mess , Rodgers has blame also , talented players do not become bad players overnight.
That result leaves us on the back foot, hopefully this is the final wake up call for everyone at celtic to dig in and start fighting for the team and fans.
Personally the board can go fuck themselves they are consistently incompetent and the fact they let lawwell rule with an iron fist is abysmal.
A bunch of lawwell lapdogs without a spine between them. .
I’m a glass half full kind of guy. But I do believe the board have sold us, the players and Brendan down the river. It’s all over guys and gals. I’ve said before, the board are a bunch of 5th columnists. Working to keep the ‘old firm’ competitive, and not realising the peepul over there would bury us forever if given the chance.
Totally sick of it.
It’s still dumbfounding that we’ve allowed this to happen. The subs weakened us today and we were weak to begin with. Our two best players today are usually scapegoats, Hart and Taylor. I honestly thought today would be a turning point, now I’m not sure we’ll do it in time. We are miles off it.
It’s difficult to rationalise any of this season as mere misfortune. Even if you don’t subscribe to the theory of this being deliberate self-sabotage to perpetuate the malignant ‘ol* f**m’ brand that many of us are now coming to accept as the most credible explanation for the slow-motion car crash we are witnessing unfold in front of us, or the notion that intentionally underfunding and handicapping the manager is simply Chairman Mao’s cold revenge on someone he categorically did not want back in the building, then what is left – mere incompetence? This is a level of incompetence that makes Boris Johnson look like Abraham Lincoln, and no-one involved should survive in their posts. It is what they call ‘nonfeasance’ in the corporate world. It’s worthy of a redraft of Peter Hook’s “How Not To Run A Club”.
Many may even question why they are funding this tupenny ha’penny operation after this season reaches its now almost inevitable denouement – three trophies in red white and blue ribbons won by a very poor side – and may conclude in a ‘cost of living crisis’ that they have had the best of it now, and that their money could be spent on better things than heating the driveway of someone who regards us as the peasants in his fiefdom.
James, even imagining that “… we can save next season” is wishful thinking while the present board, with its nepotistic short-sighted attitude is in place. If Sevco win the league, their directors will put the CL money into their team – our directors would put it into their pockets. It’s not over till the fat lady signs, but I can hear strains of Nessun Dorma …
Yes that second half was the end. They have chucked it. I agree how we now get rid of at least 10 players to free up wages for a new manager is critical. One season is bad enough but some of these clowns are on 5 year contracts. The transfer fees paid for them will have to be written off
sept/oct i knew we were in trouble….you didn’t have to be mystic fukn meg to see it…and rodgers has a major part to play in it BECAUSE he accepted the conditions….you have mentioned several times that he is an elite coach….he isn’t…if he ever was…the only elite coach we see at parkhead every 2nd week has “parkes of hamilton” painted on the side..NO “elite coach” would accept and work under the conditions rodgers did/does…
he’s a joke, along with the board he works for….shame on him and the lot of them…bastards one and all…
not to worry, lennon is still hanging around(like a bad odour)…and making all the right noises…so IF or WHEN rodgers walks…lennon can fill in….because i guarantee….RODGERS WILL NOT BE FIRED.
the huns for the treble – it’s their’s to throw away…
the summer will be another interesting one…2 years ago, they STUMBLED upon AP…after letting howe make a complete laughing stock of celtic fc….this time, and i’m sure the same set of arseholes will be conducting the search for a replacement “elite coach”….we might not be so lucky….christ knows who they’ll appoint…..scott brown anybody ?….
A CLUB LIKE NO OTHER
FAIL FAIL
Very well said murdy,I think all Celtic fans share your opinions on what’s wrong here.how we could go downhill so fast with the ” best players and an elite manager” I don’t know,but one thing is certain sevco will spend all the CL money on the team and leave us floundering for years now,thanks to those bastards on the board,but the fans have to start taking some blame for the blind faithful through and through attitude we’ve got.this board knows this and yet throughout everything from throwing the ten away we still turn up and buy STs and merchandise faithfully.
The biggest fear is the rebuild and getting rid of the absolute dross the daddy and son have saddled us with, Lawwell who helped get the 5 way agreement through is fully onboard with the Old Firm brand.
Excellent article James, I’ve posted continously that disaster was coming and it was going to unravel quickly. The deniers, you know who you are Johno, Johnny Green etc, the ones who accept massive downgrading and massive dilution of quality with we’re still better than Sevco when we are now essentially a bunch of reserves and projects have bought the boards brainwashing.
I agree it’s now all about how we mitigate the damage as I suspect the consequences of how much damage that’s coming, I still see so many blissfully unaware off. I’m a little envious of them for the moment but of course when it does become apparent to them they also have the shock element to deal with. A complete and early collapse may be a blessing. If this board is still in place at the start of next season with the sane thinking and strategy then the consequences could be catastrophic for years. This is engineered, no one can be this negligent, was all predicted with every warning highlighted again and again and again. No way can our board be allowed to escape this.
And all the club issues lead back to the guy
with his finger on the detonation button:
DD.
We know DD is not a passive, NED as he
seems to anoint the new managers, so he
also must be fully aware of the nepotism
and cronyism at our plc – and condone it?
And yes, BR will be the fall guy.
I have dwindling sympathy for him though.
BR arrived in a very strong position to
force PL to accede to his demands,
within reason. The incredible, BR admission
that “he works with the players he’s given”
was the low point / penny dropping point
of the season, imo.
Maybe hubris got BR?
Maybe he thought he had the ability to
win the league, deliver European progress,
and the SC with any players?
Maybe he’s not as good a manager as
he thinks?