Arrogance and complacency were at the centre of Celtic’s Champions League exit to Kairat Almaty.
He takes no pleasure in donning the ‘I told You So’ t-shirt but Chris Suttpn echoed the concerns of supporters all through the summer as he warned of the dangers of Celtic’s so called strategy.
While others look on from afar at a football club inside Celtic things are very different. There are factions, policies and huge egos all working to different agendas.
The ruling faction seek power at all costs, at any cost with thinking rooted in 2004 while the rest of football has moved on, much of it is unrecognisable from the task Peter Lawwell inherited in October 2003.
Even his cherished business partners at Rangers have gone but Celtic Park remains rooted in the past, the stadium hasn’t altered, it was fresh and less than a decade old when Bayern Munich celebrated a 0-0 draw soon after Lawwell took office.
The South Stand is falling into a state of disrepair, the three new stands are looking tired and in need of maintenance and basic care while the culture of back-slapping expands in the boardroom, Surprise surprise 20 years on it is largely unchanged, the same pale and stale figures dominate..
Transfer fees of £3-4m were mildly ambitious back in 2004, after reaching the 2003 UEFA Cup Final in Seville Celtic signed no-one despite knowing that Henrik Larsson was in the final year of his contract and moving on after Seven Magnificent years.
Now, in 2025 Celtic are still shopping in the £2-3m price range in the transfer market, hoping to find a Matt O’Riley but coming up with too many Marco Tilio’s, Kwon Hyeok-kyu’s and Maik Nawrocki’s.
The signings of 2023 identified by Mark Lawwell are competent players to a certain level but never Celtic standard, or the standard they should be aspiring to.
Last night in Almaty Yang Hyun-jun, the best of the 2023 Intake proved again that he isn’t anywhere near good enough.
Life at Norwich where one decent performance in three gets you by will be more comforting. He won’t be worried by a Champions League Play Off again in his career.
On Saturday morning, between the two legs of the Nightmare in Almaty, Sutton warned in the Daily Record:
I’ve been saying for weeks this shambles of a transfer window could seriously come back to bite them on the backsides.
And yet here we are.
Don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here wearing my I Told You So T-shirt. Believe me, it doesn’t give me any pleasure.
In fact, I can’t actually get my head around how Celtic got themselves in this position.
There are people who claim the Parkhead board are too cautious. I don’t see it that way.
Not when they are taking the biggest gamble of them all by refusing to give Brendan Rodgers the proper tools going into this Champions League play-off.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. That’s the phrase that came to mind the other night.
Sutton added:
I can’t work out if it’s complacently or incompetence, or maybe even arrogance.
Did they think this squad was going to have enough to get through the tie and then they could go out and spend for the group stage?
Did they not see the Scottish Cup Final? Did they fall asleep during the last three Rangers games?
And now you can add Kairat Almaty to a disastrous 2025 that has seen Celtic lose twice in the Glasgow Derby and in two penalty shoot-outs. The year will be concluded by Thursday/Sunday double bills as the manager runs down his contract avoiding the mistake he made in February 2019 which played exactly into the hands of the then CEO.
Now comes the aftermath, most Celtic fans will be placated by a win at Ibrox on Sunday, a draw will do most as they fall into the comfort blanket of being just ahead of their city rivals.
Not all fans have such low ambitions. They see a bigger picture, hear of the Lisbon Lions and the self-praise in and around Celtic Park doesn’t sit right.
There will be a natural backlash against the architects of the current Managed Decline which seems very similar to the summer of 2018 where it seemed like the strategy was to frustrate the manager.
Rodgers clearly won’t be walking out in mid-contract this time, there will be no easy fall guy for the board to point at as they clutch a £9m cheque from Leicester City.
Putting the manager in front of the media a couple of times a week to dance around the chronic failings of recruitment isn’t a good look when the CEO’s idea of fan engagement is to crack gags about ‘penalty to Rangers’ at the club AGM.
The Season Tickets have been sold, new kits have been bought in volumes but those inside Celtic’s bubble are in for a testing time over the coming months.
Protest will only be visible at home matches but the Chairman is an old hand at turning a deaf ear to the non-believers in a club the envy of many across Europe.
Finding a replacement for Rodgers won’t be so easy, Lennon III can’t be an option, it is unlikely that there is an Ange Postecoglou figure desperate for an opening into European football.
An in-house appointment, someone vastly underqualified to succeed Rodgers is the most likely route that the club will take.
Last season’s Champions League campaign of 12 points from eight matches and a Play Off knock-out to Bayern Munich in the 179th minute of the tie is now the benchmark that malcontents will hold Lawwell and his successors to, very few Celtic fans are still being fooled by avoiding liquidation and told that their club are the most admired in Europe.
That claim certainly doesn’t apply to Maribor, Malmo, AEK Athens, Cluj, Ferencvaros, Midtjylland or Kairat Almaty.
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