... and blogs are neglected.
Which is sort of a shame because there has been no proper welcome on here for Tony Mowbray, Mark Venus and Peter Grant. By all that's right and holy, Mogga & co's credentials shouldn't have got them near the interview stage at a club like Celtic but that's by the by. I like who we have in charge and I believe that they can do an excellent job for us.
That task isn't helped by having to fly to the Antipodes to play some exhibition football when they should really be preparing a squad for Champions League qualification. But then in “pursuing sources of revenue“ … “we don''t get Premiership money“ … blah, blah, Celtic always have some sort of excuse.
The truth is, of course, that all these commitments – like the Peace Cup – were made when it was believed that Celtic would win the SPL. The mere matter of adequately improving the squad to make sure that we could play in that nonsensical tournament and travel to the other end of the world without wrecking our chances of playing in the Champions League was surely a technicality.
That's in the past, of course, but not forgotten – and nor should it be.
Tony has made a bright start, attempting to re-awaken that passion and loyalty to the team and manager that disregards the intrigues of the boardroom suits. His job has not been made easier.
The departure of Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink inspires mixed feelings. He was very effective for a time but when the last remnants of pace left his legs, watching him proved to be torture. Personally, I never fully forgave him for stupidly getting sent off as we were going down to an improbable defeat against the R-word at Celtic Park. At that stage, we could still have won the match and Jan's idiocy – with the wry smile that followed – was costly and unbecoming of a Celtic player.
Shunsuke Nakamura was a marvellous footballer, who seems to have been allowed to leave without even being asked to speak to the new manager. He was, after all, quoted as saying he would stay at Celtic “as long as Peter wants me“. We must presume that Peter Lawwell had no further use for him.
Tony himself made the decision to let Paul Hartley go and while it may have been the correct decision in the long term, Paul's professionalism will be missed. I often wonder how large a figure in Celtic's history Paul might have been had he been signed a few years earlier. He has exceptional qualities and Bristol City are fortunate to have him.
So with those three and Bobo gone, “salary-trimming“ is in full swing.
And now we have Marc-Antoine Fortuné, whose signing is a bold move. Most of us are in no position to make judgements on him and the coaches have high praise for a forward they worked with at West Bromwich Albion. However, strikers who score very few goals are an immense risk.
The coaching staff point to the overall scoring rate of the team in matches he plays in. Are they perhaps overlooking the phenomenon of Celtic strikers being penalised when they challenge for the ball? Since certain blue-minded zealots campaigned for special treatment allowing centre-halfs impunity when challenged by Chris Sutton, there has been a constant theme of referees favouring defenders against our strikers.
In part, this accounted for the ineffectiveness of Jan and, unless there is a serious change of culture, Marc-Antoine faces the challenge of his life. We should be patient with him as the Jacksons and Broadfoots of the world are surely waiting to compare him unfavourably to Kyle Lafferty.
We await much-needed further signings and suspect that more players will be asset-managed out of the door. In these circumstances, if Tony Mowbray takes us into the Champions League proper, he will already deserve legendary status.
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