Who will be the next Celtic manager? The tan and teeth guide to following Brendan Rodgers

It's that time again - and it will probably last for three months.

It's the time when every loon, attention-seeker and "in the know" tosser gives their tuppenceworth on who should be the next permanent manager of Celtic.

Many of the would say that I know little to nothing about football. But I would counter that that makes me as qualified as the most successful football pundits in Scotland, so why not share my wisdom?

(Rather depressingly, many of the names below have been literally copied and pasted from a previous article on this site, at the end of the Ronny Deila era.

So, here goes:

Neil Lennon
Like the vast majority of Celtic fans, I have admired Neil as a player and coach since he was first signed by Martin O'Neill.

That said, I was against his appointment first time round (due to his inexperience) and I wasn't convinced that he would be a huge success when he left us.

But his time with Hibs seemed to demonstrate that he had far greater tactical knowledge than I had given him credit for.

Perhaps being with Hibs, not Celtic, he was more likely to be questioned on what happened in games than pressed for a big headline or perhaps he has just developed but he seems to have shown that he can evolve as a coach, which is a vital quality.

He has also, of course, won three titles and experienced the best and worst that the job can bring.

My personal view: still tending against it but softening somewhat (more on that later.

John Kennedy
There have been rumours that Kennedy is highly regarded by both the players and the board. But is he ready for the big job right now? Probably not.

Marco Rose
One of the more intriguing suggestions. He has worked wonders with Red Bull Salzburg, who took maximum points from our Europa group.

Salzburg also work with a limited budget in a minor league, but with world-leading facilities.

It would be a huge coup but the Bundesliga surely awaits him very soon.

Roberto Martinez
Has been linked before and heavily touted as a candidate.

After a very successful World Cup with Belgium, his stock is high and would be a candidate for any number of top clubs.

Still, he has Shaun Maloney in his coaching staff.

Mark Hughes
The English football pundits' idea of a football manager.

That's why he should manage a team in the lower half of the Premier league or the Championship.

Doesn't know how to smile.

Steve Bruce
See the entry for Mark Hughes above.

Jack Ross
Doing a solid job with Sunderland having been Scotland's manager of the year, last season.

He certainly talks the talk but would be a huge gamble.

John Collins
Absolutely not. Collins has the air of a self-annointed aristocrat of football. Rumours of him rubbing people up the wrong way seem all too credible because he just exudes smugness.

Plus, we must be careful of making white teeth and a permatan a tradition in our managers.

David Moyes
Moyes might well do a good job but he has spent the years since leaving Everton, for the most part, making his own club's supporters cry. I don't think so.

Gordon Strachan
It seems that Gordon probably has no appetite for the intense pressure of the Celtic job again. So, that rules him out.

Martin O'Neill
No doubt he could deliver titles again and may even be tempted to leave the bright lights of Nottingham but it would be very much back to Martin's way, which is not going to progress the club.

Plus, he would bring Roy Keane.

Roy Keane
Let's hope not! The man punches people who ask for his autograph.

In his second autobiography (because one is never enough) he stated that going to Ipswich was a mistake because, having taken the job, he discovered that he couldn't motivate himself to put his heart into a team in blue.

He should be in a secure unit on an island somewhere.

Mick McCarthy
Good old mick. I have a soft spot for him and he gives the impression that he would nut a lamppost if it caught him on a bad day.

I'm not sure that's what the coaching blend needs right now.

Henrik Larsson
Not this again! We all love him and respect him utterly. Let's keep it that way.

Alan Stubbs
He'll reckon he could do the job but recent evidence is that he's a far better pundit than a manager.

Steven Gerrard
On the plus side, he both knows Rodgers's methods and has experience of breaking his heart.

Negatives (too numerous to list) include the fact that he thinks £1m is an eight-figure sum.

Derek McInnes
When hell freezes over.

Michael O'Neill
No doubt his name will crop up again and I wouldn't put it past the board. He's good at what he does with meagre resources but it would be suffocating football.

Malky Mackay
A name only suggested by a mainstream media pundit to stir things up. He would be a PR disaster and has a reputation for liking to spend on players.
But you can bank on his CV already being in.
No.

Steve Clarke
A popular choice who has apparently said that he doesn't want another job in Scotland.

Probably would be very successful and has excellent credentials.

Steve McLaren
Just the sort of tosser Celtic plc would like to foist on us, accompanied by a puff piece on a well-known blog, telling us how smart a move it is.

Paul Lambert
That guy who will always believe that he is a much better manager than he is. He should be managing Aberdeen or a club of similar stature.

Owen Coyle
Would bring all that Bolton and Raith Rovers experience - and appoint someone like Lambert as part of his "dream team".

Jose Mourinho
Made a comment about Rodgers having left at the wrong time and started an Internet rumour in the process. It's one of the more fun rumours but a non-starter.

Arsene Wenger
Let's stick with the silliness. He can certainly coach players, has big-time experience and might even see Celtic as a stepping stone to Leicester some day.

In reality, he'd probably prefer to manage a French or maybe Belgian club and there would be no shortage of offers.

China or the MLS would also be more likely than Celtic.

So, that's just a few of the people who probably have no chance of being the next permanent Celtic manager.

But, going back to Neil, there is a possible scenario in which his appointment works.

I hope for a management team that can retain the best elements of the Rodgers reign but with greater tactical flexibility, the ability to compete in Europe while entertaining without being kicked off the park.

Having worked with Rodgers for two-and-a-half years, John Kennedy will have retained the knowledge of the good things he did - top-level training/coaching, analysis, etc.

But Neil is probably better tactically, equally good at motivating players and has the experience of being in the firing line but delivering a winning team.

So, maybe the Lennon-Kennedy partnership could work for, say two years, with a view to readying John for the big job.

Shaun Maloney might also be enticed to join, bringing his experience of working with Roberto Martinez.

Why not develop a high-tech "boot room" combining all the elements that a modern club - but identifiably Celtic - needs?

If Neil were to agree to step aside in May 2021, the next man to join the group could be Scott Brown, with the hope of three-to-five successful years under Kennedy to prepare him for the job.

The downsides could be that it would look like "all Lawwell's men" and that these plans are never guaranteed to succeed.

However, I'm convinced that we need the above elements and we are unlikely to recruit someone who brings all of them.

So, to quote a famous advert, "It's a long shot but it might just work."

That Club Statement from Dave King and The Rangers on investment for Steven Gerrard

Yesterday, the Twitter account associated with this blog @theceltsarehere posted this "screen grab" of one of those infamous statements from The Rangers.

Here it is in full:

Yes, it was just a spoof but, as the Twitter conversation reveals, apparently not so easy to distinguish from the broadsides delivered by The Rangers communications Tsar, Jim Traynor.

So, if anyone at Ibrox is looking for a statement-writer, drop me a line.

Payment in advance, please!
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The reality for The Rangers and Steven Gerrard? It's over!

Yes, we all saw him and heard what Steven Gerrard had to say but, then again, some of us saw Maurice Johnston in a Celtic shirt for his "second coming" and we all know how that finished.

So, Monday came and the least surprising thing that anyone watching Scottish football with half an eye for the truth or bare facts could have heard.

The Rangers have, allegedly, a new high-profile manager but no money or investors with which to fund his improbable aspirations.

I use the word, "allegedly" with good reason.

Yes, we all saw him and heard what he had to say but, then again, some of us saw Maurice Johnston in a Celtic shirt for his "second coming" and we all know how that finished.

Steven Gerrard may really have been so stupid as to have agreed to manage The Rangers with a maximum budget of £6m to spend on players but it would be very surprising.

Less surprising, given that we are dealing with Dave King, would be that Gerrard was spun a convincing line to get him to sign so that King could drum up cash through season ticket sales (which he would then go about pumping out of the club).

Banking on the fact that the newly-unveiled boss would be embarrassed into sticking to his part of the deal, King may have thought that Gerrard would just think that he had to lump it and hope for the best.

I could claim to have impeccably-placed sources to back that up but it would be untrue. However, the available facts and a little experience suggest that King's hastily-arranged move on Friday may have been football's equivalent of a resistable marriage proposal publicly made at your grandparents' golden wedding anniversary party.

Awkward to back out of after they have already popped another bottle of champagne.

But, if that is anything close to the truth, don't be surprised if Gerrard's advisers are already looking at ways to get out of the deal.

King will have calculated for that eventuality, probably why supporters were asked for their cash up front. No doubt a few thousand tickets were bought and paid for online between Friday and Monday, with the only surprise being that he didn't wait a few days longer before announcing that there were no new investors.

Yes, there will be some fans who are not so much unfailingly loyal as eternally gullible and feel that their only chance is to try to fund the Ibrox resurrection themselves.

But this posted on Twitter by John Bradshaw (@JBLuvsCeltic) provides the vital details that demonstrate just how desperate King's supposed share offer is and explains the departures of two directors last week - the share issue can't happen as King is facing action by the takeover panel.

So, even though £6m would have been nowhere near enough to improve The Rangers team, that money will not be there, either.

Effectively, Gerrard has a potential transfer budget of precisely zero of your British pounds.

And that would point to another likely outcome. Liquidation would see HMRC and preferred creditors recompensed before the likes of Gerrard saw a penny.

Like many other Scottish football fans, I tired long ago of "in the know" bloggers claiming to have an inside track on likely insolvency events but it does not seem at all improbable, given the circumstances.

Gerrard may take the chance to hobble through a season of grief and humiliation but, if he wants out, he will walk away.

King can jettison the whole shebang and he will not hesitate to do so if he deems it the most beneficial step for him.

But, one way or another, it seems to me that Scottish football will have to reconcile itself to a final dose of reality.

For Rangers, The Rangers and any other conceptual variation of The People's club, the message is clear.

It's over.

The Great Steven Gerrard Swindle? Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Reality

I have been wrong before but this move just doesn't add up

I do not like The Rangers Football Club. I don't dislike them with the same intensity that I did Rangers and I got a great sense of closure when Rangers were liquidated.

But any club emulating what I have always believed to have been a uniquely objectionable sporting institution is worthy of similar derision, though the stakes are less high for me, simply because we won.

Nonetheless, the new neighbours who moved in are noisy and do their best to be vexatious and even (especially) offensive. So, while, on a competitive level, I am much more concerned with Motherwell (for obvious reasons), Hibs, Kilmarnock, Aberdeen and, next season, St Mirren, the happenings at Ibrox are still worthy of comment.

I am not objective, as my first statement acknowledged. I'm biased, and speaking from a position of ill will towards The Rangers.

But, thus-declared, I have my own observations to make about the appointment of Steven Gerrard as the six-year-old Ibrox club's seventh manager.

The Player

Firstly, due respect: I liked him as a player and acknowledge that he was the best English midfielder of his generation and an all-time great English footballer.

But I have never believed that he would make a great manager because he always seemed to have a working-class sense of humility that, while endearing, was born of self-doubt whereas Frank Lampard exuded such confidence, displayed as smug arrogance, as to be guaranteed to rub me up the wrong way.

Don't get me wrong - I have always respected Lampard. In fact, I have always believed that he could make an excellent manager, which I have never believed of Gerrard.

Time will vindicate or condemn my superficial assessments but, amongst the undesired outcomes at The Rangers, Steven Gerrard taking over as boss has never registered.

Age-old Theme

For film buffs and those of a certain vintage, the last six years have been reminiscent of the Hollywood classic, Sunset Boulevard, in which an ageing "once-was" refuses to accept the realities of time and progress, surrendering any last vestiges of dignity in the process.

How Do I Look? Have I still got it?

Her increasingly desperate attempts make for compelling, if sometimes uncomfortable, viewing.

The Rangers demonstrate similar delusions, though the constantly-changing, increasingly-ridiculous storylines could have been churned out by the scriptwriters of River City.

McCoist, McCall, Warburton, Murty, Caixhinha, Murty, Nicholl, Gerrard. Between them, they have won League Two, League One, the Scottish Championship (at the second attempt) and the Petrofac and Dry Blackthorn cups.

Candidates

At the turn of the year, Derek McInnes was approached. Deek, the most transparently dishonest, Ibrox-hearted Aberdeen manager since Jimmy Calderwood, did everything short of baring his bearded backside in order to show his preference for the Glaswegian imposters over his current employers. But still, somehow, he couldn't bring himself to cash in on the points gift he had sent in advance, so troubling were his doubts about the club's financial stability.

That disappointed me as I was quite sure that he would fail at Ibrox. But he also surprised me. Never appearing to be the sharpest tool in the box, Deek nevertheless made a wise judgement.

I wasn’t unduly troubled, though I would have felt better if he had been in the bag – a few months can bring untold changes and that might mean improvements.

And so I wondered if there was the possibility of some new investment, however improbable, from the Bank of China or some such institution looking for a high-profile presence.

In the meantime, the next obvious candidate would have been Steve Clarke. This prospect bothered me a little.

Clarke has a varied and high-level coaching background, has done an excellent job with Kilmarnock and could surely do much more with the sort of funding that, even The Rangers could likely find, given his reputation and extensive list of contacts.

He also comes across as an intelligent guy, which was why I was fairly confident that he would decline any offer.

Then there was Steven Robinson, whose style (if you can call it that) I dislike intensely.

Robinson is a throwback to days that should be long gone, using physicality and a peppering of brutality to good effect against superior football teams.

Robinson is reminiscent of a young Jimmy Nicholl – staunch, no one likes him and he doesn’t care. So, in that sense he would have been a good fit at Ibrox, though not box office.

He’d have straightened them out in terms of being organised and aggressive but he wouldn’t have sold season tickets, so he was a non-starter.

Then there were the “Warnocks”. Of course, there is only one Neil Warnock but I use the term to describe one of those experienced firefighting bosses, who English chairmen turn to when their clubs are in distress.

The kind who have lived with the intense daily pressure, fans calling for their heads, the press pack stitching them up and who, year after year, come back for more.

He is one of many who just might have done a job – at least on an interim basis – finding a tactical approach to favour a desperate situation and maybe even swinging a cup or two.

But what The Rangers got was the much-admired player and virgin manager, Steven Gerrard.

He thinks it's all over: An emotional Gerrard so close to a title

This pleased me greatly, for a number of reasons.

Map-reading

Firstly, “it puts Scottish football on the map” – no, it doesn’t. Scottish football was already on the map and our own Brendan Rodgers has done a great deal to make that happen.

Brendan was the bookies’ second-favourite for the England manager’s job, within a few weeks of joining Celtic, after Roy Hodgson resigned. He has also been quoted as a likely candidate for most half-decent prospects in the English Premier League, including Chelsea, and was heavily-linked with the soon-to-be-vacant Arsenal job.

So, Scottish football is getting plenty of attention from down south and beyond, which is partly why we have Moussa Dembele, Olivier Ntcham and Odsonne Edouard. It was also quite probably a factor in attracting Clarke to Kilmarnock, persuading Youssouf Mulumbu that he could reset his career there and convincing Steven Caulker that a season at Dundee would be worth a try.

These things have all been excellent for Scottish football as has the work Neil Lennon has done at Hibs, building a very promising team.

Having Gerrard in Scotland will generate more interest and perhaps persuade the likes of Aberdeen and Hearts to consider experienced, progressive managers, who would not have been available to them two years ago.

Why else would I be happy that Gerrard is there?

Having a rookie coach thrown into a torrid situation is obviously a bonus for rivals, but the lack of tactical experience is only one element.

Leadership

Leadership is said to be one of Gerrard’s strengths but that is the sort of glib comment uttered by people who have little or no understanding of the skills and qualities associated with leadership in modern-day football.

Personally, I have never felt Gerrard to be a great on-field leader. If he had been, perhaps he would have won a league title in his career.

But, that aside, leading by example is a very different prospect to leading through communication.

This is something that the majority of ex-pros and Scottish football pundits seem never to have considered.

Book-learning

As a hobbyist blogger, I am very much a half-assed amateur when it comes to football. However, I do read about the game and biographical works about football managers reveal some common themes.

First is that a little reading about football demonstrates that, in the modern game, old-fashioned techniques are largely obsolete, partly due to increased education as well as the changing dynamics brought about by huge salaries.

Even in the lower reaches of the English game, managers study various psychological techniques, including drawing on successful leadership and motivation strategies from other sports.

St Mirren’s Jack Ross gives indications of this sort of thinking but he is one of a very few in Scotland to allude to this. I have my doubts about whether Gerrard has been similarly studious but you can guarantee that Pep Guardiola and Zinedine Zidane did so before entering management. Ryan Giggs? I’m guessing not.

Second, is the intense, nigh-on intolerable pressure, which seems to increase year-on-year. Gordon Strachan recently spoke of sitting in Glasgow holding hands with his wife hoping it would get better, when first in the Celtic manager’s job.

But look at the physical changes that took place in Slaven Bilic, once one of the coolest young managers in the game but who appeared to be collapsing before our eyes before he was finally released from his West Ham purgatory.

Before & After: Two years took their toll on Slaven Bilic

Likewise, Antonio Conte – looking like an Italian film star on his arrival, exuding confidence to the point of mania but latterly resembling someone recounting his traumatic survival of an earthquake – one year after winning the League on his first attempt.

Before & After: Antonio Conte

The Rangers is one of the least forgiving and most unreasonable clubs in football and Gerrard – neither an insider nor one whose England performances cut much ice in Scotland – will discover this when unrealistic expectations are not fulfilled.

Circumstantial evidence

But, more than this, are the circumstantial factors.

According to the media mania, his name alone will attract top-quality players and investment has been promised.

But let’s look at that rationally.

As recently as Friday, Dave King couldn’t even state if the necessary investment would be internal or external, claiming that it “didn’t matter”.

Now, far be it from me to call King a glib and shameless liar, but the empirical evidence is against this mystery investment existing.

A few weeks ago, The Rangers signed a third-rate kit deal that was derided by a large proportion of their own fans.

So, it seems safe to assume that the club hadn’t even thought of signing Gerrard at the time, as having such a big name manager on board – with exciting signings to come – would surely have been a bargaining chip in negotiations with Nike, Adidas or even New Balance.

Secondly, having promised a manager “capable of delivering trophies”, just in time to undermine Graeme Murty (and make this blogger’s concerns that The Rangers would run Celtic close in the Scottish Cup semi-final seem like frightful anxiety), King has appointed someone who can offer no evidence of the same.

Again, that sounds awfully like someone who had no idea that Gerrard would be boss, just a couple of weeks ago.

And yet, with a multi-million-pound war chest arriving any day now, The Rangers would surely have felt confident of luring a manager who had actually won something in the past – or at least managed a team – and who would back up Dave’s promise of Silverado.

We are also invited to believe that, on the cusp of a brave new era, two directors decided that they wanted to bail out before the times got truly exciting.

Add to this the debt, the issues with the takeover panel, the need for stadium repairs, etc. and the Steven Gerrard appointment looks more and more like a swindle perpetrated on someone who knows little or nothing about The Rangers or the Scottish game, aided and abetted by the most ignorant and unscrupulous shower of reporters that have ever covered any sport.

I’ve been wrong before, of course – like when I thought that we would face a few scares in the cup semi – but, at face value, this whole episode looks not so much a damp squib as a custard pie primed with a banger, ready to explode in a lot of faces.

Sympathy for the Red?

I suppose I could sympathise with Gerrard, who seems to have displayed that English-football arrogance of thinking that Scotland should be a soft-touch and a shortcut to the top.

I suppose I could predict that Brendan, Neil, Clarke, Robinson, Ross and even McInnes or Levein will take great pleasure in bringing the big-shot rookie down to earth, with a mixture of tactics, man-management and experience at the coal face, and that we should go easy on someone who has been pretty inoffensive, thus far.

I could but, on reflection – nah – f*ck him!

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