Listening to Martin O’Neill last night was thoroughly depressing. It was thoroughly depressing because he appears not to accept that he and his coaches had any responsibility for what went on at the weekend and in Austria.
He continues to tell the players that all they have to do is work harder and apply themselves better. It is nonsense, and I would be shocked if it reflected his actual thinking, because if it does, he’s in trouble and we’re in trouble.
Every single one of us knew the team was wrong on Sunday, and nothing he did provided an answer as to how to fix the problem. The problem was allowed to haunt us. He did not take remedial steps to get the situation under control.
Nothing he or the coaching staff did made any impact.
Nothing worked, and the horrible conclusion a lot of us are drawing is that they either did not understand how to fix the problem or didn’t recognise what the problem was in the first place. Obviously, neither of those is a good scenario.
You can’t blame the players for everything.
This is a moment that demands that someone at this club finally, at last, takes some personal responsibility. I genuinely hoped that it would be Martin O’Neill. I genuinely hoped that he would see clearly enough to know that it has to be him.
Because the problem really does lie on the coaching side. The team doesn’t look well coached. It doesn’t look well drilled. I spoke about the disorganisation yesterday and tried to highlight it in some diagrams, and there was much better analysis than that online showing how easily we were ripped apart.
This club badly needs people willing to own their decisions.
People willing to take steps to fix the problems they are responsible for.
The thing that was clearest to me when looking at the composition of the midfield is that the players are too far apart from each other.
There is no support worthy of the name which does not open a major gap somewhere else. That has got nothing to do with the players not having the aptitude or lacking the application. That is a fundamental problem with the system itself.
As I said, you can have the three most athletic players in world football playing in those roles. But because they’re playing those roles, and because they’re not connected to one another or working in unison, you’re not just asking someone to put in a shift.
There are times when you’re asking him to be in two places at once.
I don’t know any player in world football, not ever, who’s had that particular skill set.
I am deeply troubled to read Martin O’Neill’s assessment of what went wrong.
If he thinks that it was simply about grit, simply about desire and simply about the mentality of the players, he is delusional, because the problems are not about that.
The players are playing in a system that is broken. They’re being asked to do things that are impossible. The whole plan was incoherent.
Christ, at half-time, when everybody realised that the problem was that we were losing the midfield battle, he made a like-for-like substitution, taking off Tounekti and bringing on Hassan. He didn’t see it at all.
That is horrendous. That is absolutely appalling. He did not return to the substitutes’ bench to make more changes until we had conceded not only the second goal but what might have been the third, except that it was chopped off.
Even with the new players on the pitch, he didn’t plug the gap that had allowed Dan Neil to score the first goal.
So, of course, Neil got the third from the exact same place, doing the exact same thing. I don’t care whether Martin O’Neill wants to blame the players for that. That is a problem with the system itself.
That he doesn’t realise that, that he doesn’t see that, is dreadful.
It’s scary, because I can see circumstances where tomorrow night we line up with Callum McGregor, Benjamin Nygren and A. N. Other in the midfield. If McGregor and Nygren are both playing in those same roles, with the same gaps between them, then he hasn’t learned anything. He hasn’t changed anything.
He’s going to persevere with a system that is not working until we have a reversal so catastrophic that it can no longer be ignored. In my view, we should have had that reversal already. It happened in Linz.
To hear him say after the game that maybe Ibrox was a wake-up call suggests that he doesn’t consider Linz to have been a wake-up call, which it absolutely was.
All the mistakes that were evident that night were evident again on Sunday, and that proves that they didn’t fix them. If those problems repeat on Thursday and he attempts to blame the players, he should get laughed out of the room.
The fans need to have confidence in this guy. That confidence was shattered in Linz. None of us has ever witnessed a Celtic side throw away a four-goal lead with 60 minutes of a game left. None of us has ever witnessed anything like it.
To see him and his coaching staff stand there on the touchline that night looking like lost souls is something none of us is going to forget. There is no getting over that result. There is no getting past that result unless fans can see that lessons have been learned and action has been taken to change the way we play.
Ibrox proved that no such lessons have been learned. In the aftermath, I expected to hear some personal contrition and a little bit of self-reflection. All he’s doing is demanding that the players work harder. That is not going to cut it.
He and his coaches are the ones who have to work harder. The fact that Derek McInnes was able to beat these guys with a pair of twos is something they all need to reflect on, long and hard. They should be embarrassed by it. They should be shamed by it, and they should all be doing a lot of deep soul-searching as a result.
Which is not to say that the players get a free pass.
They don’t. They are going to have to up their game, and I don’t want to hear any more talk from them. I want to see action.
But my sympathies are with them right now, because they are being asked to do incomprehensible jobs with no evidence that they’re well coached, well drilled or that any of it is well thought out.
A strategy that depends on players producing individual moments of magic, which is apparently what O’Neill and his coaching team are relying on, is not a strategy at all. There is a gaping hole where a plan should be, and until these guys convince us that they have such a plan, blaming the players is them deflecting, and that will not do.
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Some of the players looked lost and Sunday reminded me of the Wilf horror show. The board remain the primary source of blame as they appointed MoN and failed to bring in the players we needed. As usual most business was done in the day or two of the window with squad fillers.
I’ve no idea what the recruitment strategy was or how aligns with our playing style but the management team on Sunday were utterly clueless as they were in Linz.
I’m not sure even Rodri could have made a difference to that shambles of a midfield. That said, the quicker Tounketi exits the club the better. He offers virtually nothing going forward, is cowardly and lazy.
We might be good enough to win the league but like last season this is going to be painful unless the management team recognise the need for tactical changes.
I’m sure it was mentioned on the Trinity Tims podcast but whoever it was that said it reminded me of something I mentioned to a friend on deadline day. “We have signed a load of decent players without questioning whether they fit our system”. Kasper for example, obviously a penalty box striker as part of a front two. We dont play a front two. Duran very similar. Hassan? Okay I get that signing because we needed a decent right winger, but left winger? Nobody. Holding midfielder was needed, nobody signed. Baur? Replacement for Hatate perhaps? Okay fair enough. Schmeichel retired nearly a year ago so we knew we needed a new number 1, nope. Tierney can’t last 80 minutes once a week, let alone twice so we badly needed a left back, nope. Van Den Berg. Is he good? Does he fit a 4 3 3 system? Who knows because we’ve never seen him. We sold Engels, quality replacement required, nope. Ccv is very injury prone, another cb badly needed to challenge him, nope. So going into the summer I summarised that we needed a quality Gk, LB, Dm (priority), engels replacement, Maeda replacement, quality lone striker and a right winger. We got the right winger and nothing else required to make a 4 3 3 efficient. Seven positions needed filled with players who can play those roles and we signed one. I was excited when Duran and Hogh signed because I was certain that meant a change in system. But we’ve just thrown them into a system they can’t play. 13m on a striker who clearly can’t play as a lone striker. It’s utter madness and it all comes down to the club being a shambles from top to bottom, having no long term plan, not even a short term plan tbh, just a case of “Right, here’s some players Martin, make it work” and Martin was stupid enough to thank them for it. The club is a mess and needs a total reboot, but this won’t happen. We will continue with 4 3 3, continue to be ripped apart by better sides and be promised (again) a full rebuild in the summer.
The confidence and momentum, will still be with the ibrox side in this next game. Nae doubt about that. Tho we have a chance tae retaliate on Sunday. And i hope our players have been listenin tae and readin, all the bullshit thrown at them these past days.
Like most of our fanbase, I’ll be honest enough to say I’m severely pissed off with Sunday’s meek capitulation, and the one in Linz!!!
Completely unacceptable but not wholly surprising given the way last season unfolded, coupled with the ongoing incompetent unprofessionalism that starts at the top and seeps through every aspect of our club.
So what I’m going to say might contradict my previous words but in no way attempts to trivialise our current form.
We failed miserably in Linz…it’s now gone and we had to try and regroup domestically & in EL.
We failed miserably at Ibrokes to a poor outfit that had us easily sussed and we are now out of the first trophy of the season.
That too has now gone and we now have to regroup collectively…manager, coaches, players and yes, fans too!!!
Last season was an eye opener for us all and I truly believed we’d learn from it…starting with a new, dynamic manager and coaching staff.
We haven’t and MON took the job!
So we have to believe that MON …a guy who helped win us the league against all odds, can overcome this latest gloom, doom and negativity that is seeping into every word, site and blog that we read and hear.
I still believe that he can sort this out ! Do I believe that he should be there at 74?
No, but he is and important he’s given the opportunity to try and continue to do so, to the best of his ability and the many resources he has at his disposal!!!!
If it becomes apparent that things are still in free fall, then change should happen !
It’s at that point I’d really worry because this board CANNOT be relied upon to provide answers or solutions to any issues within Celtic FC!!!!
So I’m going to try and rise above the current overwhelming negativity and keep my faith in MON & god’s will, to sort this out and the players to support him in whatever he is asking.
Starting with Ferencvaros tomorrow night! HH
Greetings from Hungary. (I’m a Celtic-supporter writing from Budapest; my second favourite team is Ferencváros).
I agree with every word of this post. And I feel utterly sorry for Martin O’Neill. Given the circumstances, he did an excellent job (twice!) last season. He would have deserved to retire and the end of that season as the man who repeatedly made a miracle happen at Celtic.
But he is in a situation now where I can’t even imagine an ideal scenario for him. He was my hero; I remember watching him when he became the manager in 2000, and hearing him say “it’s an honour”. I will never forget that.
As for tomorrow’s game: Ferencváros are not in the best shape, the new head coach had a rough start. So, I think both teams are in a difficult situation. Celtic should win this one.
Good post Fater81!
Fater81,reading Ferencvaros’s recent scores, they are undefeated in the past eleven competitive games including a few Europa League qualifiers . If correct, why are they in a difficult situation?
In the Hungarian league, they lost points against weak teams and didn’t even play well when they won. And that league is a joke, beleive me. The new head coach is still finding out what would work best for the team.
But the most important point is that everything changed after the elections in Hungary. Top teams, especially Ferencváros, were generously funded by the state (OK, through state-owned entities, but it’s still taxpayers’ money) and never had to act prudently. Now, things are getting more difficult financially. On the other hand, players who want to show themselves in European competition can be more motivated to play against Celtic than when they are playing in the domestic competition.
It’s as simple as the nose on your face. We need a realanager. Not an interim manager a real replacement. The only positive in this scenario is maloney, mcmanus and fotheringham will also leave. We need someone in in January, then and only then will this club start moving forward. MON and Co. have now become liabilities.
*real manager not realanager