Celtic Shows No Imagination Or Ambition Whatsoever In The Way It Makes Key Appointments.

Last week, I sarcastically congratulated Darren O’Dea on getting through Celtic’s rigorous recruitment process in his appointment as “player development manager.” That process which has given us John Kennedy, Stephen McManus and a host of other ex-players. Today I was not in the least bit shocked to see Jonny Hayes and Charlie Mulgrew in the frame as Under 18 boss.

The general feeling being expressed online to those who raise concerns over this is “so what?”

This is, after all, as they say, standard practice at clubs across the world, and this is true, up to a point. It is not true of most of the major clubs, those which aim to be world class and don’t just use that phrase as a deflection tactic when talking to fan groups.

Celtic talks about being world class, about building a world class football department. But we don’t actually take that seriously. We don’t act like it. We don’t go out and find the very best people that we can. We continue to be run like a mom-and-pop operation, and you cannot run a swanky department store with a corner shop mentality, and that’s what we try to do.

Am I saying these guys are not up to it? I have no idea whether they are or not. But I do know that Charlie Mulgrew has never coached a football player in his life, so he’s got none of the experience you would want from someone in that role.

Hayes at least works with young players right now, at Aberdeen, but he’s only just gotten his badges and is very much at the start of his career. Neither of these guys is remotely qualified enough to justify such an appointment.

It reeks of laziness. Of cronyism again. Of a lack of imagination.

No “rigorous process” would have arrived at these guys, just as no rigorous process would have arrived at O’Dea, or McManus or Kennedy … the problem here is not just these individuals being linked with this job but what it says about the whole structure at Celtic Park, the whole way we go about our business. No rigorous process would have landed us with Michael Nicholson or Mark Lawwell either, and as much as anything else that’s my problem with this.

That’s what these names mean to me. They mean more of the same.

They mean that nobody at Celtic Park ever learns, or seeks to change the processes by which we do things. I think part of the problem here is that some of the people making these types of decisions don’t want us to go shopping around for “the best in class” because if they did bring in top operators in one area people might finally start asking why we don’t have them right across the boards … and that might threaten some people’s cushy numbers.

What troubles me most about this is that the manager has recently spoken about how his responsibilities involve bringing through young players to the first team squad; if the boss is really going to provide more opportunities then our academy has to start churning out a much better class of footballer than it currently does … you can have the best manager in the world at the top of your club, and the most dedicated to youth, but if the structure underneath him isn’t first rate then that guy is doing nothing more than pissing in the wind.

If our club is committed to bringing through more youth players then it needs to build an operation which makes their development a key priority. Throwing highly important jobs within that structure to The Friends Of The Man stinks to high heaven when placed next to that objective.

I know people will defend it regardless. But we’re nowhere near having the kind of operation at Celtic which those at the top of the house claim to want for us. This doesn’t bring us even one step closer to the sort of improvement we need.

It’s amateur hour. Again.