Celtic were overawed and overpowered at Ibrox on Sunday, knocked out of the League Cup by Derek McInnes’ Rangers side after an abysmal performance.
Celtic fans will rightly point the finger at the players. There were too many poor performances and too many players who simply didn’t turn up for the occasion.
But there’s something that’s been niggling at me since the beginning of the season and we’ve now seen it manifest itself twice in a big way.
This team does not look well coached.
I think people are reluctant to say it because Martin O’Neill is the man in the dugout. He’s reached sainthood at Celtic and it’s difficult to criticise a living legend, especially after he delivered the most unlikely of titles last season.
But it has to be part of the conversation now.
We’re playing like a team whose main hope is that having better players will eventually see us through. Thankfully, that probably will be enough in plenty of SPFL games. When the level goes up, though, we’ve already seen what can happen.
LASK was one warning. Ibrox was another.
Celtic lost a League Cup today and the chance to get silverware in the cabinet early in the season. There’s some irony in that for Martin after he was deprived of the chance to finish the job in this competition last season. He beat Rangers in the semi-final before his interim spell ended, only for Wilfried Nancy’s Celtic to lose the final against St Mirren.
This one belongs to Martin and Shaun Maloney, with Fozzy obviously part of that coaching team too.
The set-up at Ibrox was poor. Starting Camilo Duran and Kasper Høgh together was a big decision and it didn’t work. Sam Johnstone getting the nod in goal didn’t work either and certainly hasn’t furthered his cause.
More worrying was what happened when it became obvious the initial plan wasn’t working.
Rangers went man for man, pressed Celtic and made us incredibly uncomfortable. Celtic couldn’t find an answer to it. There was very little adjustment from the touchline and the in-game management was painfully bad.
This wasn’t Celtic being blown away by some brilliant Rangers team either. McInnes has clearly made them better, but let’s not kid ourselves about the level of opposition here.
That’s what makes the performance so embarrassing.
When the bigger games have come this season, Celtic have shrunk.
It also feels a lot like last season in one respect. We’re relying on moments rather than having any real assurance about how Celtic are going to win games. We need an individual to produce something rather than watching a team collectively impose itself and make the result feel inevitable.
There are good players in this Celtic squad. There are enough of them to win a lot of football matches in Scotland.
But good players still need a structure around them.
Nobody is suggesting Martin O’Neill suddenly doesn’t know football. Nobody should forget what he did last season either. But his standing at Celtic can’t make the coaching staff immune from criticism when we’re watching the same problems emerge in the biggest games.
The players deserve plenty of criticism for what happened at Ibrox.
So does the dugout.
Celtic need to be coached to a higher standard than they are right now.
We can only hope the moments go in our favour at Celtic Park next Sunday.
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MON is a yes man and a Shill for Desmond. We all know who is at fault and MON is as much to blame…..MON, Desmond,Nicholson, McKay, must go. Regardless of us pumping them next week . Celtic is in the wrong hands
I would go further and suggest that it’s not just a coaching issue with this Celtic team, it’s a belief problem. When that game started today, Celtic looked like they had already played 90 minutes – they were so slow and disinterested. It was so LASK-like and also similar to the way they played against St. Johnstone. I fear this is just the beginning of worse to come.
Martin O’Neill certainly deserves praise for winning the title last season, but I’m afraid he’s just too old and disinterested himself now to put any life into that squad for the big games. Just the other day, he was telling the press how he misses his coffee on the King’s Road and how he sometimes wonders “what am I doing here.” That’s hardly inspiring talk from a first team coach, although he is right insofar as he is now just too old to coach. He also failed miserably to insist on the players he knew the club had to buy to compete at a higher level.
Celtic are definitely missing a Scott Brown or Neil Lennon in that midfield area. Mika Baur is never a man for man replacement for Arne Engels and Tounetki is certainly no Daizen Maida. He’s so bad that he should never again be in a Celtic strip – the natural talent simply isn’t there. As for the rest, only Donovan and CCV tried a leg. McGregor is too old, Tierney is physically unable to manage more than 45 minutes, Hassam flatters to deceive, Nygren is a good goal scorer but not a great midfielder. Kasper Hogh is very quickly turning into Kasper who? I never saw a player fall so often on his face as that guy – certainly not worth £11m. Even Duran had an unusually bad day at the office, looked knackered.
But it comes back to the spirit of the team, McInnes had his boys well fired up for this one and they snapped at the Celtic player’s heels for 90 minutes. O’Neill fried the spirit of his team when he talked about a coffee on the King’s Road, wondering why he was there and being glad to see the back of these derbies. It’s obvious from words like these which team was going to win the match. I think Martin would have done better to retire with dignity at the end of last season, to make way for a younger, more dynamic and hungry coach, one who wouldn’t have been so defferential to Dermot Desmond and his Board lackies. But it is what it is and there’s worse to come, I fear. I’m not bothered about it – they don’t pay my rent!
That’s so true at present we can’t stand pressure our midfield have not got an enforcer who can boss the game. Against Lask being 4-0 up we should have shut up shop and control the game. Today against Sevco All our players froze at Ipox and we could not handle the presure with None of our supporters there, sevco outplayed us in every department and the coaching staff and players should be ashamed of themselfs after today.