Key decisions that shaped a season
It has, in case anyone has failed to notice, been a challenging few weeks for Celtic supporters. Our season has gone belly-up faster than Kevin Thomson with soft-tissue damage. The once beautiful Bentley of our dreams lies ruined, scarred by a scorned lover’s anti-freeze, facing the indignity of being in the wake of a chuntering blue Skoda Favorit.
There is only one reasoned response in such circumstances. Bellow hernia-inducing boos urging foul prejudice against diminutive red-heads. After the storm, the fight in the pub and the note from the wife revealing she has started a new life in Bognor Regis, it becomes the turn of the unbearable chatterers to whine: “Where did it all go wrong?”
Well, are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I’ll begin to chatter.
We failed to replace Neil Lennon
Or rather, to revamp a midfield that often looked vulnerable last season, we adopted a new system and recruited two new players to form the axis of our team. Regardless of what might be read elsewhere, neither Massimo Donati nor Scott Brown are bad midfielders – both have outstanding qualities.
But once upon a time the received wisdom was that it took any player a full season to settle in at Celtic. In the most important area of the field, we relied on two players who would both experience major cultural changes: Donati in a new country and league; Brown experiencing life with a new level of expectation and responsibility.
Those challenges are difficult enough at the best of times – when you can’t be sure of turning to your midfield partner because he is having a tough time too, it makes it all the more difficult.
We failed to replace Neil Lennon
“I realise that technically speaking that's only one flaw, but it was such a biggie I thought it was worth mentioning twice." Kryten
With the exit of Lennon, we didn’t just lose a player, we lost a captain. And what a can of worms that would open up.
The problem was that there was no single viable candidate, partly as a result of the massive overhaul in playing personnel that Gordon Strachan was forced to undertake. The mature, experienced leaders like Paul Hartley and Steven Pressley were just in the door. The higher-profile internationals like Artur Boruc, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, Thomas Gravesen, and Shunsuke Nakamura were also either fairly new to the club, in playing positions that people rarely favour as captain, ready to be loaned out, or less than fluent in English.
Captains are often easy to spot – they’re the ones who always seem to have their tonsils displayed in photos. But in the circumstances, given the squad profile, Stephen McManus was the correct choice.
McManus was the longest-serving player at the club and a solid performer but also a young man expected to occasionally cajole and sometimes harangue older players who had achieved more in the game than he had. Not easy.
And there was another issue – Strachan knew full well that once a captain was picked, he effectively had to be an automatic choice on the team sheet. Any other player can be changed – the captain of Celtic is only ever “dropped” prompting speculation on his future. Picking his captain had profound implications in terms of influence and team selection.
The sale of Kenny Miller
Kenny Miller, as anyone could see, didn’t score enough goals for a striker. On the plus side, he was keen as mustard, fitter than a butcher’s dog, and more effective in making goals for other players than taking them for himself – true altruism in green and white.
In isolation, selling Kenny Miller wasn’t hugely significant but it did leave the team looking short of attacking options. Who would be thrown on to hare behind defences and cause havoc by his sheer energy? Who would bring a different dynamic to a team that was still happy to make Deek Yeah-but-no-but-yeah-but Riordan a rich man? Nobody. But, against his will, Miller would be punted, regardless of the fact that Celtic were trading in an option for around £3m.
Failing to account for second season syndrome
The unique phenomena that are believed to be attached to clubs like Celtic include the bizarre tendency of players who have one good season to be completely pants the next.
See Shunsuke Nakamura and Lee Naylor. Nakamura, of course, was injured for much of the season. But when he started to complain that it hurt him to kick the ball hard, there was a serious warning sign there. Suddenly, Nakamura looked like the lightweight with fancy touches he had been dubbed: okay in a confident team that was flying – little or no use in a chasing side with the heeby-jeebies.
Naylor, on the other hand was last season’s sensational find and this season’s left-sided equine. His ferocious runs, and terrifying early crosses were replaced by a player who looked to be waiting for a boy in a sombrero to wave a carrot at him before hoofing the odd ball on payment of a sugar-lump.
The intransigence of Gordon Strachan
Let’s get one thing clear – this blog is on Gordon Strachan’s side. He achieved great things in two seasons, dealt admirably with the issue of following a “hero” and has demonstrated that he is a clever man who thinks about the game.
The problem with thinkers, though, is that sometimes they fear that which they cannot understand. Remember when Davie Hay used to take off Celtic’s best player Paul McStay to let Roy Aitken charge through the midfield on his “surges”? It seemed ridiculous and could be rationalised only by blaming Alan McInally for ruining the Maestro’s passing with an inability to remain onside – but, time after time, it worked.
Strachan brought a few players in, notably Barry Robson, Georgios Samaras and Ben Hutchinson. But only Samaras was given much of a chance to make an impact. Robson doesn’t have the full technical refinement of Nakamura, but he is just the sort of player needed when a team is crying out for someone to be effective. Hutchinson – we don’t know. One for the future? Then why dismiss Miller and Maciej Zurawski unless you have faith in the replacements?
In recent months, Strachan has rarely made any significant tactical decisions that turned games around. He has retained the system he thought best and has been painfully slow to make confident, attacking substitutions.
The trouble is when managers cannot be swayed from the notion that their team is playing the best way possible and that it is only a matter of time before it comes right, it usually ends in tears.
Which brings us back to where we started. And so to bed...
