Celtic don’t deserve to be playing in the Champions League.
The Balance Sheet can do without the £40m bonus that was picked up last season through an aggressive, progressive side that was eager to learn, played on the front foot and was ambitious.
Tonight in Almaty was the consequences of a club riddled with cation and fear, where lawyers and accountants make the key decisions with planning for a rainy day all that passes for a strategy. And in-fighting, where key figures are briefing against others through willing messengers.
Else where in football, at Club Brugge for example, the six matches played before Christmas last season would have been grounds for optimism- how can we build on this and punch as high as possible.
At Celtic it was the opportunity to cash in. To sell Kyogo Furuhashi and Nicolas Kuhn, not bothering to replace them and hope that the luck of the draw in the Play Off round would see them through to a fourth successive Champions League campaign.
Michael Nicholson, expertly groomed by Peter Lawwell gambled and lost.
There were shades of Maribor, Malmo, AEK Athens, Cluj and Ferencvaros about tonight’s result, losing out on penalties after 120 goal-less minutes.
Lawwell was the common denominator as Ronny Deila, Brendan Rodgers and Neil Lennon came up short against lower ranked and resourced opponents.
Not many CEO’S in European football pocked £3.5m which was Lawwell’s pay day when he completed his 2018/19 Income Tax Return. Celtic lost to AEK Athens that season and then their manager, the one expert in his field at the club.
Google John McGinn and Youssuf Mulumbu if you need a refresher.
Complacency, incompetence or arrogance Chris Sutton asked on Saturday in the Daily Record. Answer- all three. Squared.
Three terms that perfectly sum up the Celtic executives where everyone has either been appointed or promoted by Lawwell or his clone Nicholson, the man that cracks ‘Penalty to Rangers’ at the Club AGM in-between his 364 days of silence.
Brendan Rodgers is the only progressive influence at the club, he is far from perfect but he knows the modern game and potentially what Celtic could achieve.
He got a taste of it last season but reminders in the sales of Kuhn and Kyogo that the priorities are in the Balance Sheet while the club’s recruitment operation returns to the projects and punts policy which almost sabotaged his return to the club as manager in 2023.
Despite three successive seasons in the Champions League the Celtic squad is basically the one assembled by Ange Postecoglou in the summer of 2021 and January 2022 when there were no Lawwells directly involved.
Fail to prepare was put into effect tonight, the warning signs have been present since January.
While fans celebrated a late win over YB Bern on January 22 Nicholson pressed the green light to sell Kyogo with no intention of bringing in a replacement striker.
A point the following week away to Aston Villa would have earned extra prize money and and provided a slightly more favourable draw in the Last 16 Play Off.
With the bank balance on £73m on December 31 Nicholson opted to get the fee from Rennes and tell the customers that Kyogo had been desperate to leave. The striker disguised it well.
Celtic lost to Aston Villa, in the Play Off round they were level with Bayern Munich after 178 minutes despite Rodgers only having two usable substitutes. Could Kyogo have won that tie- too much of a risk for leading Sports Lawyer Nicholson to take.
As well as Kuhn and Kyogo, Rodgers was without the injured Jota and Alistair Johnston for tonight’s match in Almaty. It showed.
The diluted quality of the squad was evident with Yang Hyun-jun and James Forrest starting on the wings and an over used Daizen Maeda put through the middle where he was starved of service.
This Celtic squad would have been eaten alive in the Champions League, it would have made for brutal viewing, the Europa League will be slightly more forgiving but all eight opponents will be ambitious and sense demoralised opponents where the manager is working his notice.
With the Scottish co-efficient falling the SPFL champions will soon be playing three rounds of qualifiers, it could be a long long time until Celtic are back on the big stage.
With Lawwell in the background and Nicholson the front man it is looking like a very lengthy exodus ahead.
Appeals to the #celticfamily to pull together won’t wash on supporters who have paid an average of 8% more for Season Tickets at a club where managed decline is in operation with the plating squad weakened as part of a petty campaign against a manager that delivers success.
Next season the new in-house management team will have their work cut out as they try to make a mark in Europe building a team built around Luis Palma, Odin Thiago-Holm and Maik Nawrocki.
The sound of kerching from duping fans will become a distant memory with only the hollow sound of domestic success to cling onto.
Kairat, Midtjylland, Ferencvaros, Cluj, AEK Athens, Malmo and Maribor certainly don’t admire the self declared ‘best run club in Europe’.
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5 Comments
by Terry Thomas
Brendan does not know what the transfer budget is. This tells me that he is not involved in picking potential players, he gets told here are your new players get on with it. We have lost players since the January window and still haven’t been replaced if Brendan does not pick the players that come in it’s down to the board.
by Terry Thomas
Brendan said before the end of the season targets have been identified and the board will work quickly to get the players in. I would like the board to come out and let the fan know what is going on. We are running out of time and no doubt we’ll panic buy and pay over the odds for someone
by Amcq14
I am despondent, disgusted and delighted this evening. To say that was painful to watch is an understatement it was totally shambolic. I live in hope that we can do better in the Europe league but quite frankly we are not even good enough for the conference. Brendan Rodgers is not to blame in anyway the board are. BIG TIME
by Remove the board
Time for a new board the current regime are old and stale devoid of ambition and clear direction. We need a new group of directors who are forward thinking and have a clear view and strategy to take the club forward.
by Steve Murcia
It is time for the fans to react in a sensible manner by boycotting the home Europa League matches.
This is the only way to hurt this board.
Rainy day monies? Let the board see they have created this storm.