Watching your favourite football team is something fans love more than anything.
Or at least, it is supposed to be.
But we all know that there are times, there are games, there are runs, there are spells and sometimes there are seasons when the sense of something going calamitously wrong grows and grows with every week that passes.
Let’s be honest, we’ve all felt that way for at least a couple of months. The fury that has erupted over the signing policy was based, in no small part, on the understanding of what we’ve been watching here, the understanding that this thing was coming apart and that only an infusion of the right quality was going to put a stop to the slide.
The complete failure from everyone at Celtic Park to add that requisite level of quality has led us to the brink. This season isn’t over, not by any manner of means, but right now it is ending one week at a time. Nobody doubts at the moment that we’re very close to a tipping point, where the whole campaign just implodes. Every game brings it closer.
The board carries the bulk of the responsibility for this.
The summer transfer window was one of the most incoherent messes I’ve ever witnessed.
The January window was just unforgivable.
Nobody in the upper echelon emerges from it with a shred of credit or a single excuse to make. It was a lamentable failure, and when Kilmarnock come to Parkhead a week on Saturday the directors are going to be subjected to a response which will shake them in their shoes.
They deserve every bit of it. Every bit of stick. Every bit of criticism. They are done. There’s no coming back for them, the enmity of the fan-base is now a Fact, they will never be able to escape it. These people once dreamed of a shining legacy; instead every single departure from the board, when it comes, will be greeted with derision and contempt.
But the manager, he has a lot to answer for here. This team is awful to watch. The football is chronic. The state of that performance tonight … it’s one of the few times in my life where I’ve watched my team win and felt that we had watched a massive injustice done.
Not because of the decisions – the two penalty kicks were spot on, and the confident strikes from Idah belied the pressure he was under to score them – but we did not deserve three points and Hibs certainly did not deserve to leave that ground without any.
Rodgers and the team were acclaimed tonight at full time by fans more relieved that grateful, but he knows that this doesn’t pass the smell test.
What we watched tonight was a mess, an absolute shambles saved by a late penalty kick. There is no point in sugarcoating that as anything else. People might want to sit back and enjoy the moment, but I did not enjoy any of that.
I am getting no pleasure out of watching this team at the moment; instead every match has the same mounting frustration attached to it, and watching the manager stand there as though he had morphed into David Martindale, clueless except to resort to the most basic ideas, is perhaps the worst thing about it. He gets no credit whatsoever tonight.
That was as incompetent as the directors have been. His decision to play Idah was vindicated, but he persists with the same formation – except when he changes mid-game to that ineffectual version of the 4-4-2 which allows us to be overrun in midfield – and refuses to properly adapt.
This still feels like a season that’s unravelling. That late winner was vintage Celtic, and we got very good at those during Ange’s two campaigns, but those campaigns never felt like this, those performances never looked like that, where you would not have been terribly surprised had Hibs won the match instead of us.
We’ve won the game. Yes, and I suppose in the morning I will feel the appropriate emotions including a not inconsequential surge of relief. But I feel flat and empty after watching that, as though part of my mind is already resigned to how this is all going to go, as if I’ve already started to mentally adapt to the idea that this might be a meltdown.
This feels like one of those movies where you went into it with anticipation because the first few in the series were great, only to find with half the film to go that you are bored shitless and wishing you’d done something else.
There is time left for the film-makers, who you’ve always admired, to leave you stunned and feeling it’s been worth it, but that time is running out one minute at a time and you cannot see a satisfying conclusion.
The thing is, Aberdeen and Hibs weren’t in for big spending either and both had ‘lesser’ squads to begin with. Even with all the grumbling off-pitch about recruitment there’s few excuses for recent performances against other Scottish sides. That’s down to the manager and those selected to play.
Same excuses from BR. Same play. We won a watch tonight. Total and utter skite. BR could not get a tune out of the Brazilian squad in the SPL. What a sad state of affairs. Now Welsh and Scales are play makers. Mince.
I shouldn’t be downbeat after a win so dramatic as that but I am…
I know we were lucky tonight – in fact very bloody lucky –
My only real positive is that Celtic can use it like a similar springboard to go on a run like Sevco did when they knew they got outta jail in their home game v Hearts…
But I’m not sure this lot posess the mental fortitude for such a run –
St. Mirren ain’t gonna be easy on Sunday nor Kilmarnock in a week and a half either…
But they must be given a chance of course –
The ‘Brendan – Get over to Carnlough and spend your retirement teaching The Ruari Og’s Post therefore gets put into storage for a bit yet then !
So right. The Board for sure are culpable but so is Rodgers just as Ange was for the results in Europe. Fortunately Angie’s success in SPFL meant he left with some respect. Now we have regressed into Lennon almost 10 IAR territory- hopeless in Europe and dismal in SPFL.
I’m not sure Rodgers can inspire these players to a win the league mentality- no one seems to be playing good at the moment. Has BR lost his mojo or has he admitted to himself that he cannot make silk purses out of sow’s ears? Is it too late to prevent ranjurs from overtaking on the outside lane?
Yes this board are certainly culpable for this terrible transfer window, but i absolutely believe that Rodgers is to blame! for the way the team are currently playing it all seems so disjointed, he is no longer what is termed an elite manager no Fecking way his tactics are s….e in a word there is a malaise about the team. I knew last night we were going to get a repeat of the Aberdeen game where they came out second half and gave it their all.
Could he Rodgers not see that and tell the team to expect it and be ready, we are not winning this league if we do it will be a miracle.all teams in the league do not fear us anymore, and even worse for me is Sevco are a poor team just that we are worse i really hope i am wrong and we kick on and win the league. but regardless of what happens this board has to GO!! sorry for the rant but i is scunnered!
It’s sad to see alright, our defence frightens the life out of me but once CCV comes back, adds some steel and we start putting the ball in the net I’m sure confidence will return.
We’re a bag of shite right now but we’re making but not taking chances. If we weren’t creating opportunities to score I’d be even more worried. When goals return so will confidence. HH
James,
We’ve had our differences (mostly over events in the Middle East,) but you’ve nailed it this time and we are in full agreement. That was very, very painful to watch. What makes this spell all the more hurtful is that it is almost completely self inflicted. So much blame to go around.
Only changes at the board level combined with significant investment in new signings will fix this mess, and unfortunately it’s too late for either this season. This will, I fear, be death by a thousand cuts as we struggle to win, or even draw, virtually ever match. I just can’t see it ending well.
Absolutely totally agree with you. This team is like the one that was going for the 10 in a row. There doesn’t seem to be any urgency right now. It’s not like the team who at 1 stage was 8 points clear in the table. I just can’t get my head around why Peter lawwell was brought back. Michael Nicholson was doing a brilliant job until lawwell came back. I just Don’t understand stand it. Finally I think the recruitment is all wrong at the club. Wrong people in the job?. This needs to be changed very very quickly now.
Rodgers an elite manager my arse. He has strangled the life out of this team with his boring tactics which he refuses to change. Opposing managers had him sussed years ago in Scotland and he is being found out again. We are headed for a repeat of the 10 in a row debacle under this clown – get him tae f…!
I had a very tiring day at work and wasn’t feeling too good and, watching the game at home, for the first time ever tiredness got the better of me and I drifted off to bed with 10 minutes to go. With very little enthusiasm watching our dire performance I gave up the ghost and I was convinced that when I woke up we would either have drawn the game or gotten beaten as Hibs had looked the more likely winners when I bowed out.
I’m delighted with the victory but I agree with James that it was a very hard watch. What next? Surely we can only get better, but I felt the same as that after the Aberdeen game. I am not one for knee jerk reactions, but although the wheels have not come off yet, they are distinctly wobbly.
I’m still looking forward to our next game, but not with the same desire as I normally would.
I sincerely hope we get back on track fast.
This is 10 in a row part 2 and has a very similar feeling to when Rodgers jumped ship. How can we go from getting players in ” b4 the window” when ange was in charge, to our once again last day panic stations.?
Everything coming out of parkhead has a very bad vibe about it.
I could have written this article myself,everything you have said is bang on.I would love to know who is doing the scouting of these players because I’ve lost count of how many are not even near Celtic class.If the manager can’t see it then there is trouble ahead.
Spot on James I am scared to watch them at the moment What on earth has gone wrong
We had four wingers last night that wouldn’t take a man on,and don’t get me started on the rest of the team absolute garbage but at least we found a penalty taker.
If this current Celtic team were a wine, they would be classified as “vin ordinaire” . The build up from the back is so slow that the opposition has plenty of time to organise their defence. Both wingers last night were happy to pass the ball back rather than attempt to get to the bye line and make telling crosses. The tactics last night were appalling, and that is down to our manager, who no longer knows what his best eleven is. The old saying, ‘never go back’. I am now convinced that it was a major mistake to give the job to Rodgers , we required a new fresh outlook with better ideas than he has come up with. I hate to say it, but we won’t win the league playing this way. Let’s speed up the way the ball gets from defence to our attackers and we might start to score lots of goals again. HH
Despite the talent in the midfield they are always posted missing. Scales always ends up the one expected to move the ball forward and create the chances.