An open letter to Tony Mowbray

"It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty."

"Hold it the greatest sin to prefer existence to honour, and for the sake of life to lose the reasons for living."

Juvenal

Dear Tony,

I rarely like to call for a manager's head, especially one that is such a short time in a job. However, the time has come for you to make your most important contribution to Celtic to date.

Tomorrow morning, I would urge you to call for a meeting with Peter Lawwell. At that meeting you should hand him your letter of resignation, stating only your willingness to remain in position until such time as a replacement can take up his new post. You should also make it clear that you will not be swayed on your decision.

I bear you no ill will. I remember your playing days and, though they were largely unsuccessful, you were always a committed professional and a credit to Celtic. In fact, that has been true of your behaviour as a manager and, while I believe your position to be untenable, I would also insist that you should feel no shame in failing to produce even a competent Celtic team.

I suspect that you have been working with one hand tied. Despite your claims to have wanted to sign Zheng Zhi – a decent footballer who nevertheless rarely plays – it was remarkable how quickly the Celtic marketing people produced a Chinese language version of the club's website after he signed. It was also a surprise that he made his debut in the most televised game of the season – against Rangers – given that he had come from a radically different footballing environment and local culture.

Strangely, when we signed Ki – another talented player, mind – there was apparent disappointment that he was ineligible to make his debut against Rangers in the next most televised match.

Okay, I'll come out and say it: I don't believe you have full authority in recruitment or even in naming the team. I believe that Celtic have maintained Japanese, Chinese and Korean players largely for the purposes of brand exposure and that these factors have directly influenced team selection.

It has been widely rumoured that you were unaware that Celtic had agreed to sell your then captain Stephen McManus to Ipswich and it is abundantly clear that you had no part in the signing of Robbie Keane. Of all the club's recent signings, I believe Keane to be the best and I for one am happy to have him.

However, it would be naïve to believe that this particular deal was not made at the behest of Dermot Desmond, who is assuredly culturing very influential alliances that may be extremely useful to him in the future.

Apparently you did want to sign Danny Fox, who was then sold in record time to be replaced by a loan signing, Edson Braafheid. Had you ever seen Braafheid play? He is certainly talented but far from being an assured defender. Had you ever seen Rogne, Hooiveld or Rasmussen? I am not saying that any of these are bad players. However, as I am sure you are aware, there is more to building a team than collecting players.

Who is the leader? It appears to me that it has been years since we had one. Surely any manager realises the wisdom of having “old heads” to help younger players learn some game craft. A loose association of individuals rarely succeeds at anything.

You are not alone in facing this problem. Gordon Strachan had Marc Crosas, Roy Keane, Thomas Gravesen and Du Wei, among others, foisted upon him by a coalition of scouts and executives. It was clearly this he was referring to when he insisted that at Middlesbrough, he was certainly not going to sign players he had not seen. For that he has been scorned in some quarters for signing players from the likes of Hibernian and Dundee Utd.

There are some who believe that the role of manager is unimportant – that he should just make the best of the materials provided to him. Those who believe that are at best fools and at worst cynical elements who will damage our club.

But, for all my sympathy – and I believe you should protect your reputation by revealing this, if it is true, rather than signing a confidentiality agreement – you have to take a major portion of the blame. The last straw was the substitution of Robbie Keane with 20 minutes remaining against Aberdeen. You must have been the only person watching that match who believed the points were safe at that point.

You had only to look at the fact that Aberdeen had been allowed to score twice already - against an allegedly full-strength side – to conclude that there was a clear danger that they might do so again. Before that, I thought that you would never make a more bizarre decision than to replace Aiden McGeady with Lee Naylor. How little I knew!

You have consistently shown yourself incapable of putting out a team that can control a game at its most crucial moments. Brian Clough always said that a team is at it's most vulnerable either side of half-time and just after they had scored. Why have you consistently failed to realise this?

Who told you that Marc-Antoine Fortune – again a decent footballer who panics when he has time on the ball in the box – should be your main striker? Why do you change the few functioning areas of the team from one week to the next? And do you really think that it was wise to mention Alex Ferguson's five lean years at Manchester United? Perhaps you have forgotten that we expect to win the league every year – especially against a club that is so debt-ridden that it is unable to sign players.

There is much that is rotten at the heart of Celtic and I feel sorry that your period of tenure is being tainted by it. I also sympathise with your disappoinment and it is clear that the Scottish officials are conspiring as never before to further hamper your ambitions. You are worthy of better. But so are we.

It seems that you are incapable of fielding a team that can match flair with the most meagre form of expediency. The problem is that someone else could yet win this league, even given the absurd points differential accrued on your watch. That is why it is important that you go now, while there remains a faint flicker of hope.

I sincerely hope that you will do as I ask and, if you do, I will wish you well. Don't let the fans' disappointment turn to bitterness.





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Mowbray a victim of ill-advised planning

The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved.

Confucius

Well, we finally concede a goal and play a competitive game, with our Champions League hopes already severely undermined.

To some, this would appear to be an appropriate time to warn of the fate of other managers who lost their first game for Celtic – how some fans will never forgive Tony Mowbray.

If we read the Scottish tabloids – and those of us who try to avoid that embarrassing illness of the media world are ill-placed to comment on their responses – we might castigate Marc-Antoine Fortuné for a night of spurned chances.

But Celtic fans are already showing that, despite the worst wishes of our critics, we are capable of reacting proportionately to disappointment.

For Marc-Antoine, Wednesday night will surely not figure highly in his list of career highlights. He showed us what we were led to expect – he is willing, athletic and appears to have a finishing capability to match his scoring record. This, we were fully warned of before he signed the deal but we can reasonably expect that a few more matches will improve his effectiveness.

Landry N'Guémo continued to demonstrate that he could serve as a potent weapon in midfield, if he is careful with his distribution but then Massimo Donati, arguably the best technician left at the club, somehow managed to pass the ball to Dinamo players, scorning the vindication of a rare first-team selection. Those of us who have defended Donati are now starting to avoid people in corridors, recalling past “just wait and see” conversations.

But if we are going to single out individuals, let them be Shaun Maloney and Aiden McGeady. Quite frankly, it is time for these two laddies to act like men, to produce the goods for 90 minutes consistently. Instead, for too much of their careers, they have been playing like kids in front of their grandmothers, expecting words of praise and consolation, regardless of their ineptitudes.

“Some nice touches” and “effective for a while” are not phrases with which to heap praise on Celtic players. These two need to talk to someone like Bertie Auld and ask for private tuition in how to combine football with expediency in order to be effective. Hell, they could start by having a word with Peter Grant – by common consent not the most naturally talented Celt ever but one whose standing our two starlets look unlikely to challenge in their careers.

But in the case of Tony Mowbray, it would take a hard heart not to sympathise with him in his disappointment. True, he made a baffling decision in bringing on Danny Fox late in the game but a least he attempted to be proactive with his substitutions, quite rightly demonstrating to Fortuné and Scott McDonald that they will only play if they are doing so well. And it was refreshing to see him attempt to influence the game rather than waiting for something better to happen with a failing formula.

However, it would be wrong to fail to (again) point the finger at the real culprits – those who arranged a ridiculous pre-season schedule that was viable only in the case of winning the league title that they neglected to pursue professionally. Anyone with a modicum of sense would know that if there's one thing to avoid, it is playing a Champions League qualifier before even a domestic league game.

That can only be done by investing properly to win the SPL. Sending a team off to Australia in the aftermath of that gross negligence was utter folly – but then it had been pre-booked at the height of their naivety.

The outstanding image from last night was not of any player but of Messrs Reid, Desmond and Lawwell, sitting shiftily side-by-side in their directors' box that might equally have been a high court dock.

They may have sharp lawyers but the public are still likely to consider them guilty.






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Summer's no breeze for Tony Mowbray

Well, the close season comes, birds twitter, summer breeze makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine...



... 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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