There was an interesting story yesterday, coming from Jackie McNamara, about how his client, Ben Doak, would have stayed at Celtic if… if, if, if, if, if.
There’s always an “if” with these guys.
What I think is that McNamara is trying to cover his backside—and his client’s too. And you know what? He’s perfectly entitled to do that.
He’s perfectly entitled to try and put a better spin on what happened with that move. He doesn’t need to defend it.
He’s perfectly entitled to try and justify his own role as Doak’s agent in recommending that he move to Liverpool. Liverpool is a massive club, it was a good move, and I’ve never had the slightest problem with what he did or how he did it.
But I really wish people would spare us the revisionist history after the fact. Celtic fans don’t care what’s happening with Ben Doak now. By and large, he’s a forgotten man. There’s no need for anyone to relitigate this whole affair because we’ve moved on. And really, he played one game in the first-team squad, so it’s not like we were losing an Abada, a Jota, or a Giakoumakis here.
Celtic wanted to keep him, and a lot of our fans feel a stab of regret that we couldn’t get a deal done. But that’s the point—we couldn’t get a deal done, even after he was told he’d be considered a member of the first-team squad.
So, I don’t want to hear that Celtic didn’t do enough or that Celtic didn’t offer a pathway. He was determined to leave when Liverpool came in. It’s not a difficult decision to understand. There was never going to be any serious consideration towards staying once the Anfield club was on the horizon. So, McNamara can come out with as much nonsense as he wants to the contrary.
A lot of these guys leave for money. A lot of them leave because they don’t see their options at Celtic Park. Once that decision is made, we’re not talking them into staying. Daniel Cummings is only the latest one to be offered a chance to stay with the club and make an impact, only to choose to go somewhere else. And once his move to West Ham is confirmed, I don’t want to hear any rubbish about how the club didn’t do enough to keep him. If we put a contract in front of him, we did enough.
Now, our club doesn’t get everything right in this regard. In fact, our club has got a lot wrong. One of the frequent complaints on this blog—and elsewhere—is that we don’t have a youth system worthy of the name. We have an academy that is run by mediocrities in a slapdash manner, and playing in the Lowland League is doing nothing for anyone’s development.
The issues are well known. We’ve discussed them here countless times. Until we see major reforms at the academy level, I don’t see any sign that we’re going to get better. Yes, we do a handful of things right, but the criticisms of our system are entirely valid.
In the last few years, we’ve lost numerous young players who could have made a first-team impact eventually. But the key word there is “eventually.” Those who keep screaming for these players to be given first-team games need to answer a simple question—who are you dropping to make that happen? Which first-team players are you taking out to make room for these prospects?
The so-called “pathway” isn’t about handing young players game time for the sake of it. If that’s what people think it means, then they’re advocating for weakening the squad just to give some youngsters a chance.
And I’ve yet to meet a single Celtic fan who would genuinely support that. Not one of us would trade a couple of trophies just to see a couple of youth players thrown into the team when they may not even be good enough.
So all this talk about a “pathway” is smoke and mirrors. Should we be doing more for our young players? Absolutely. We shouldn’t be playing in the Lowland League for a start, and the whole academy will come on leaps and bounds when we no longer do.
We should have a better loan system to get games for our kids, at clubs where they’ll actually develop. More of them should be going out on loan to SPFL clubs. No one will tell me that Daniel Cummings wouldn’t have benefited from a move to a club like Hibs or Motherwell, or that those clubs wouldn’t have benefited from having him.
But Doak had already made the breakthrough. He was training with the first-team squad. He had been given first-team games. His development path was clear—stay and play his way into the team. He and his agent decided not to.
We get enough gaslighting from the mainstream media. McNamara can spare us the self-justifying claptrap, and especially when it’s un-necessary. Especially when most of us have already moved on.
Photo by George Wood/Getty Images
Thinking back, have any of the young superstars who left Celtic over the years actually become real Superstars in their own right…..and the answer to that is, NAW. Nuff said!
Totally agree with all of that. It’s got to be difficult to have a proper fit for purpose youth system when there’s no proper fit for purpose league for them to develop within.
Have we missed out? Na
The revisionists fail to understand player power. How it dictates who comes and goes.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1617TBPOCzSfxtMfRWI9LUZgVQ3SlBOFDrj-vekfHEBo/edit?usp=drivesdk
They raise issues that confirm their narrative that The Board is useless.
There is an audience for that narrative but the longer Celtic remain successful the smaller it will become.
Blogs that indulge in reason as opposed to rhetoric will grow. Not because they favour one side of the divide or the other but because they tell the truth with evidence to support.
Sterling job of defending the Board Auldheid78.
I’m fully aware of the dangers of ‘confirmation bias’ and fixating on individual
Bogeymen’ and try to use logic to clear the smoke and crack the mirrors.
When all else fails I fall back on the old mantra..
‘ if it walks like a Duck etc.’
It’s not a case of scoring points or picking the successful or popular choice.
Prolonged success breeds complacency and contempt.
Now the Celtic Board like any social group will contain a mixture of the best and worst of human strengths and weaknesses. Powerful leaders, Followers, Sycophants even. Even those who would defend their own confirmation bias, that this successful period was achieved by adopting the ‘Only’ path forward.
What I and many others are challenging is the ‘Orthodoxy’, the Gospel as handed down by the Celtic Board.
There are other ways to operate. There are other Visions for our present and future and that the complacency and misplaced surety of the Board based on the Club’s performance over the past 20 years has bred a contemptuous disregard for the lifeblood of the Club.
The day that the Club is returned to the Supporters and away from the Bookkeepers and anonymous Yes men that’ll be the day we start to find our purpose again.
3 things I think the club could do to improve youth development/protect young assets.
Allow these players to feature in early cup games. I wouldn’t hate if we were to start using the League Cup as a way to blood young talent similar to what Arsene Wenger used to do at Arsenal. Strong benches to push us on if needed in games but we could play them in early rounds of cups or against the lower oppositions we may be drawn against.
Give them longer initial contracts. We shouldn’t be giving contracts to young players where we then lose them at 18. Their salaries would not be significant in the grand scheme & would be well worth having players locked in to either have more time to get them involved in the team or to see some financial return when they do leave.
As you say find a higher level of competition for them to compete. I’d personally have them compete in the SPFL ladder. Have them compete in League 2 or League 1. where they can’t be promoted higher than league 1. Or they only play each team once a season so they aren’t playing full seasons too young.
The fact we don’t have any sign of a James Forrest or a Callum McGregor in the pipeline is concerning because it means we will be weakening the squad to meet HG quotas compared to currently having players who meet the requirement who are proper first team players or impactful squad players.
Sorry, but no way would I advocate endangering our trophy haul by introducing young players before they are fully ready. It took us a very long time to get in front of the sons of satan in the trophy league, and it is now our time to go full steam ahead.
I know where you are coming from Jay, but it’s a selfish no from me.
Agreed One thousand percent plus Johnny far less one hundred !
I listened to a discussion on the ACSOM where one of the contributors stated that the first time that a contract renewal was presented to Daniel Cummings was the 27th of January, that was 2 days after he came of the bench in Birmingham in the Champions league, his contract at that time was £900 a week. Daniel Cummings has been at Celtic for 13 years so unless the contributor was lying then our board in its wisdom thought it was acceptable to treat him in this way. 3 of his fellow B team players were offered improved contracts in the previous summer according to the contributor. If this version of events is correct then no one should blame Daniel for coming to the conclusion his future lay away from Celtic Park.
How Are Our Co-Efficient Monkeys Doing Tonite..????
Will They Succumb To Their Fourth Consecutive Home Defeat At AsbestosDome Next Week…????
Will The ‘Four Desperados’ Have A Dream /Or ‘Mare….????
It’s The Hope That Kills Them .
Lawwell has been far too long at our club than is healthy.
But we’re not supposed to mention that.
It’s not even best business practice. Like a lot of the things that we do. Nepotism and Cronyism being just two of the most egregious complaints.
Aye, but we’re Wurld Class in everything we do.
IF IF IF IF IF Jackie…
Aye – If your mama had a cock she could be your daddy but she doesn’t so she isn’t !
IF IF IF IF Fuckin IF !!!
Things have changed so much from the Quality Street Gang – the Celtic reserve team of the 60’s. They’d play a reserve league match every week, play (and win) Glasgow Cup finals and were given meaningful game time in an 18 club top division. Since then greed and self interest has gradually taken over Scottish Football, leading to a 12 club top division, no reserve league and needing 11 votes to change it. I’m a proud Scot but the small mindedness of our people drives me crazy, and the SPFL is a stark example of it. The 3 Scottish Clubs who won European trophies consisted almost entirely of Scots, due to the set-up in
The sixties and for a time afterwards. I don’t believe this can’t be changed for the better and that Celtic should play a leading role.
He should be called Ben DOPE for leaving Celtic !!!