Ferencvaros' Australian midfielder #15 Daniel Arzani (C) scores the team's third goal during the UEFA Europa League, League phase football match between Celtic and Ferencvaros at Celtic Park in Glasgow on September 17, 2026. (Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP via Getty Images)
So, who do you blame for that? Callum McGregor, a lot of people are going to say. And you know what? Our captain has become the whipping boy for being asked to play in a position he no longer has the legs to play in.
If you want to blame him for that, that’s up to you.
But there was one guy tonight who doesn’t belong in a Celtic team. I have said this so repeatedly that my head hurts saying it again. Every manager has his favourites, and every manager has players he blames for all manner of things.
O’Neill believes that Auston Trusty lacks the physicality to be a first-choice Celtic centre-back. But Trusty was the player at the back who held our team together last season. He was tremendous. He was so good that it was outrageous at times.
But he doesn’t use his physicality enough, and for some people that’s a deal-breaker. Well, I’ll tell you something right now: he is a vastly superior footballer and central defender to Liam Scales. Any manager who repeatedly selects Scales ahead of him is basically digging his own grave, one game at a time.
Scales was abysmal. And if something happens to Carter-Vickers or Trusty, that is the best we’ve got. Think about that when you consider how this club has prepared itself for the season.
Blaming McGregor for being slow, for having advanced in years, is nothing new. But are you going to blame McGregor for playing in a position he clearly can no longer cope with, or the people who keep selecting him there? Just about anybody right now would bring more energy to it than he does.
I’m not saying they would do it as well as he does. There is a difference, because of all the players in the squad, McGregor himself is the only one with anything like the necessary experience and skill set for that role. That is the fault of the scouting department, the management team and the board of directors.
That problem was evident last season.
It should have been addressed in the summer, and it wasn’t. Some people are going to let the board, the management team and everyone else off the hook by saying that they knew about it and tried to bring in a defensive midfielder.
They didn’t try hard enough, in my opinion, because if they had, we would have one. McGregor wouldn’t have to keep playing that role. But when it comes to the back line, and Liam Scales in particular, the manager has only himself to blame. He is the one who decreed that we were happy with our options in central defence.
Anyone who is happy with those options simply hasn’t watched us over the last few years. Any central defence that Liam Scales is part of is not one anybody should be looking on with pride. But he is a favourite of the manager, and we know that from the manager’s own comments. O’Neill spoke about asking him what this team would do without him.
As I have said already, that has a very obvious answer: improve. But that is not an answer those at Celtic want to hear.
No other player in the squad exemplifies the collapse in standards at Celtic more than Scales does. The idea that we couldn’t do better with a very modest transfer spend is so ridiculous that it should not even need saying. The idea that a club like Celtic cannot do better than that is a joke.
We have accepted that standard. We tolerate that standard. But the suggestion that we could not improve on it is plainly ridiculous, because of course we could.
I’ll talk tomorrow, maybe, about the utter lunacy of the second-half substitutions, especially the decision to take off a midfielder at half-time and put on Kasper Høgh, weakening the part of the side that was already weak in order to chase the dream of having the so-called best players on the pitch.
Any manager who talks about that and leaves Liam Scales out there is asking for every bit of mockery that comes his way anyway.
Doubtless I’m going to go over this tomorrow until my eyeballs are sore. But I said we would learn some things tonight. I said we would learn how much had been learned since Sunday, and the answer is perfectly obvious: absolutely nothing.
For a start, he played Sørensen in Nygren’s position. Whilst he offered a little by coming back and helping the midfield, it was still crazy. Taking him off was even crazier.
As for the other substitutions, don’t even get me started. When I saw Nygren coming on, I said that if they hadn’t taken their foot off the gas, we were going to be in even more trouble. I joked to my friend that all we needed now was to see Luke McCowan introduced, which he duly was not long afterwards.
And people think this Celtic squad finished the transfer window in good shape. We signed four players who never got near the pitch tonight: two because they weren’t registered, and two just because. For all those deadline-day signings, we are no stronger for it, except financially, which is all the board cares about.
But hey, almost a full house tonight, in a competition the manager and the club have made clear they do not value above domestic football. Domestic football in which we are already out of one cup competition, by the way.
Almost a full house, despite all of that. If you’re thinking that we are too loyal for our own good, you would not be wrong. But something has to give.
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We are too loyal for our own good. I agree. The full house was an embarrassment. A bigger embarrassment will be having seen this crap for a whole season and renewing the season tickets. There’s no point in highlighting the full house if you and many others sign up for another year.
I chose not to purchase the EL package and even turned down a free ticket for tonight. I start work at 4am six days a week and for the last 6 years that hasn’t stopped me going to late kick offs despite living two hours away from Glasgow meaning regular ‘all nighters’ were required to watch the football, but tonight I just simply couldn’t be bothered. The club have sucked all the enjoyment out of watching Celtic for me. Instead of going tonight I had two pals round to watch the game and I advised both to stick on Ferencvaros to win and both teams to score at 6/1 which made their night. Seen it coming a mile off. Like yourself, I actually joked to them at HT that all we needed to change the game was the introduction of Tounekti, McCowan and Ralston and that’s who came on. The fact that THIS is what we are given to watch while they continue to rake in millions from the supporters makes me ashamed. Normally when celtic concede a goal, whether in the ground or at home, a few swear words are shouted with head in hands but tonight… I can honestly say I’ve never cared less about goals conceded or a defeat. We all knew it was coming and when we lose on Sunday, big decisions will have to be made once again so early into the season because of negligent, poor planning. Such a shame that someone with the stature of O’Neill has allowed himself to end up in this position.
I’m not going to defend Scales this time, he was abysmal. I don’t blame him for the own goal, that was unlucky but he constantly gave the ball away, he had a mare. The problems haven’t changed and Trusty won’t fix it either. I like Trusty, the Nancy period was the making of him where he was forced to defend on his own a lot. Tonight isn’t about sticking the boot in to a scapegoat like what happened to McCowan.
Scales was shite today, Tierney and Forrest attacked well but couldn’t defend properly, CCV and Donovan were ok, McGregor was below par again, Baur? pfff, sorenson was shite, Hassan was shite, Duran pretty anonymous. Donovan couldn’t last the 90 again which is a concern, the subs were all ok, Hogh looked determined at least.
McGregor fronting up in the interview as per, he says the right things but he’s always talking about the group, he needs to get his own performance up to standard.
The team look like strangers but it’ll come.
Brattbakk – lots of good stuff in there. On Trusty we can all remember BR mouthing something like he was too soft. Fine I thought but who in training at the time was beating him up to make him tougher – if Trusty had faced Sutton or Hartson in training then I’m sure he would have become tougher. I’d point the finger at McGregor twice for their second goal. Donovan showed his lack of experience (understandable) for the 3rd goal.
I didn’t see enough of the game to pass judgement on the others. It is screamingly obvious to me that we don’t have the players to play 4-3-3. I would play 3-5-2 and in this shape I would have CCV-Scales-Trusty. I would play Donovan and Tierney as our wingbacks and have a midfield three of McGregor, Baur and Nygren (I would also tell McGregor to expect to play no more than 65 minutes and look to replace him with AOC and think about this as a regular rotation – the next week AOC starts.). Upfront Hogh and Duran.
Defensive – yep, but to win a battle you have to own the battlefield. Get dominance then look to bring on Hassan, Forrest, et al. (if we had Yang available he would be one of my starting wingbacks – which shows that fortunes can change rapidly in football).
I’ve had friends and family tell me I was too harsh on Liam Scales for years and that I just didn’t like him. I don’t dislike him, I just don’t rate him. I’m sure he’s really decent guy who tries his best, but in the 55 years I,ve followed this club, I believe he is the worst distributor of a ball I heve witnessed in a Celtic jersey and I’ve seen some bad teams
JS – with you on this. I barely watched any of the match as I found some odd jobs to do round the house. I saw our equaliser and thought, now just get to HT…the players on the pitch (no one else to blame for this moment) couldn’t do that – basic game management for 1 minute was beyond them…
MON is clearly frustrated by our slow, risk averse build ups and said he wants more aggressive attacking play. Either the coaches are ignoring him or the players are ignoring the coaches because what the manager wants to see on the pitch isn’t even being attempted.
Of course we have seen this happen before when a manager announces he is leaving at the end of the season – he immediately becomes a lame duck, no matter his past success. Regardless of the result on Sunday we need to take drastic action. Personally I would appoint MON as our Chairman and then look to Europe for a new manager and coaching staff. I wouldn’t be averse to Kieran McKenna although he is possibly out of our league. Our CEO should already have a short list of manager candidates given that we all know MON is not extending post this season.
The summer window will prove to be as much of a disaster as the janurary one , on the last day of the transfer window it got to the point anyone would do just to get bodies in.To address your main point James ,Scales,Ralston,McCowan,etc,etc aren’t fit for purpose and yet are tolerated God help us.
Ralston and McCowan are fans living the dream. It’s not their fault that they have made the EL squad due (in part) to their status as homegrown players.
Other homegrown players were available but James and others have turned their noses up, saying we shouldn’t pay the “Celtic tax” – but if we don’t generate and keep genuine talent at the club then this is the make up of the EL squad that we get.
Luke McCowan hasn’t even been in the squad for the last month so how can he be part of the blame? The whole team have been shite yet now Scales has taken on Luke’s mantle as the sole scapegoat.
The trouble runs much deeper than that, the coaching of the team is an absolute shambles and MON has given up. He will be gone within a week or so.
The whole squad is shot — lacking in confidence / belief / desire.
The opposition were EuL journeymen but when our bottle crashed we made them look like world-beaters and they had enough to deliver what we gave them.
Scales was terrible — bad beyond his recent norms.
But so was Tierney — totally shot / career ending.
Sorenson looked lost — at times he looked like a raffle winner..
Donovan is a good footballer but a terrible defender.
Forrest managed 20 minutes then back to wee guy mode.
Hassan looked as if he is only halfway through our tactics book.
Duran looked more and more detached as the game went on.
Apart from that we showed some promise between losing cheap goals.
McGregor was beyond bad — never wizzer who is stinking out the dressing room.
The whole leadership dynamic is non-existent — O’Neill is only here for the money.
Maloney needs supervision — on his own his record is shocking.
The main issue — all of this is not new.
We were running on fumes last year.
Only active coach was Nancy and he was chased.
Failure in real football is what we do now.
All in all — we are now a cos-play team.
They go through the motions.
The team phones it in.
The execs squirm.
DD is leading us towards SPL competitiveness.
It takes a huge amount of effort to be this bad.
We are the worst coached team in the SPL.
Livingston would show us up right across the patch.
.
We play like a jazz ensemble without instruments.
Lots of movement / lots of quizzical looks / no output.
Looking forward to seeing who Peter Pointer’s gaslighting tomorrow in the anti-Celtic media.
This will please many on here but if Mon plays MacGregor on Sunday to choke the free flowing football then I won’t be back until we get new Management team and coaches.
Stopping short of the old adage: in the land of fools it is foolish to be wise.
I’m dreading Sunday. And i can’t remember ever feeling this fearful. The way i feel right now i’d settle for a draw on Sunday. That’s how desperate i feel. I just want Sunday to be over and done with. We are going to get humped rotten.
My God the scattergun of criticism and scapegoating by a few peope here, including you James is breathtaking. For the first 20 mins we looked good, but as soon as they scored our bottle went. We then got back into the game with the best “Team” goal of the night, and then one minute later our defence froze, and completely lost it, surrendering a ridiculous goal. We then start the 2nd half gung ho, and a midfielder down, with what looked like a 4 2 4 system, but who knows what it was supposed to be?
Our manager and coaching staff have lost the place, and because of that we’re rudderless, and confidence has completely gone in every area of the pitch. A pile on of criticism isn’t going to help these players. Sunday is either the day we get back on track, or the day when this collapse becomes a real crisis.
Like everyone else, I am bitterly disappointed with our last two results, but I thought we played some good football last night at various stages of the game and, but for the obvious sloppy errors, we could have gotten a positive result. At least, unlike the Huns who were turfed out of Europe by virtual nonentities, we are still playing against top European sides. I am therefore not looking forward to Celtic Park on Sunday with any foreboding. The Huns before their last game at Ibrox were a poor team and that is still the situation, they are there for the taking, and I am looking forward to us redeeming ourselves with a victory that will take us 8 points clear of them.
The 4-3-3 play out from the back BR system has become a noose around Celtic’s neck. The current players don’t suit that system, or are simply unable to carry it out against good opponents, or opponents who press them high up the pitch and threaten their lack of composure on the ball.
Hassan and Nygren don’t do the tackling or tracking back required for a 4-3-3, and Callum doesn’t have the same mobility he once had to dictate the play. The midfield are also too lightweight. Changing to 3-5-2 would mean dropping a couple of high value players, but it may be required.
Is this a joke of an article James or is your head so far up your bottom that you’ve forgotten you spent TWO full seasons defending/praising Scales when Brendan was picking him week in week out ahead of Nawrocki and then latterly Trusty (whom you have literally only two days ago pointed wasn’t an automatic choice when we signed him just because he cost £6m and now you’re saying he should be)?
Some of us have been pointing out since September 2023 (the day he had one excellent game at Ibrox) that Scales always was, still is, and always will be, a carthorse – great at winning headers in both boxes but a total liability when the ball’s on the deck – and utterly horrendous at passing the ball even to someone just ten yards away. He is arguably the most one-footed player I have ever seen.
The only bit you have right in the article is that he’s not to blame for being in the team – the blame for that lies with the management picking but that covers BOTH Martin O’Neill and Brendan Rodgers – you don’t get away with revisionism on your praising of Scales now that’s he being found out because he hasn’t got partner bailing him out all the time.