Where's Warbo? And just what's going on at Ibrox?

One of my most embarrassing days as a Celtic fan came in March 1994.

After much fan unrest, press derision and scoffing by our big-spending city rivals, the club called a press conference to say they had pulled a very big rabbit out of a magic hat.

Despite all suspicions that the Board of Directors were dishonest, incompetent buffoons lining their own pockets while Celtic disintegrated, we were told that the most improbable of plans for a £50m stadium had the green light.

Where's Warbo?

I can still hear Patrick McNally's voice replying “Gefinor”, when asked who had put up the funding for the project.

Of course, within days it had become clear that there was no funding, no stadium – only the pathetic folly of men who knew the ball was on the slates.

My youthful self learned a few things then about taking anything at face value when it doesn't seem to fit with the available facts – and that people under the most extreme pressure act differently.

When they know the game is up, they will put their last grand on 32-Red to try to save their house and, of course, the ball inevitably lands on 0-Green.

And, somehow, the surreal events in Scottish football since Anthony Stokes equalised for Hibernian and then David Gray delivered the Hibs their first Scottish Cup for 114 years seem reminiscent of that fateful time in 1994.

That's not to say that the Scottish game has been short on surrealism in recent times. From Whyte to Green to King, the Fit-&-Proper criminal. From the company that was never a club that never died, though the new club and the old club co-existed and King of the new same club suggested reversing the liquidation of the old same club.

From Apocalypse to Armageddon, from football dreams to fighting on the field; we've had all this and so much more.

But on Saturday, the violins started to be played to the strains of Stadivarious c.1994.

So The Rangers lost – nothing new there, nor in the bit of thuggery at the end. And the bleating: well, it's to be expected.

But watching the eerie light from phones pointing to Jim Traynor as he read out his statement explaining that the players couldn't receive their medals because they had been assaulted, something wasn't right.

Primarily, it was too soon after the events. Often that's a sign that something has been pre-planned but clearly not in this case, unless you believe that the actions of thousands of fans was orchestrated.

No, but when there is genuine alarm, events tend to take a different turn. Firstly, the most important thing is to make sure everyone is accounted for and in a place of safety. That will most likely include guests and loved ones of the entire party, so as to reassure the players and staff.

Then there will be a consultation with police, match officials, stadium security, the SFA and, almost certainly, the sponsors, who expect full bang-for-their-buck.

Typically, briefings are informal because the club communications people have to establish the facts and liaise with their SFA counterparts. Holding statements – brief summaries of the club's position that commit to little – are released.

And then, when the dust settles, decisions have been made and order restored, there will be a press conference. A proper one – not one man in a darkened room reading out a statement he has just put together, when he could not possibly have taken all of the aforementioned steps

Add to that that not one club official or player has commented on the game – unprecedented in my lifetime of watching football – and there is room for suspicion that Jim Traynor's statement was not relaying facts or genuine concerns but, instead, was moving quickly (a little too quickly) to create the media narrative.

What was the reason? We don't yet know. Did one of those victimised players or officials have a rush of blood and do something he expected to get into serious trouble for (who was the official aiming a kick at a supporter)?

Did Traynor know that the club was facing disaster due to the loss of potential Europa League revenue and season ticket sales, as some have suggested?

What we do know is that the Ibrox spin machine went haywire in claiming victimhood.

We were even told that every single Rangers player and official was assaulted, which had already been refuted before that statement was made.

What are we supposed to believe – that Kenny Miller, who Anthony Stokes praised for sportingly congratulating every Hibs player in their dressing room – has no words for the supporters after what will surely be his last Scottish Cup final?

That Mark Warburton is similarly derisive of the club's fans after a season in which they have just been promoted?

That not one player has agreed to talk to the media? If that is the case, there are only two conceivable reasons – that they have been warned to shut up or that they, collectively, have refused to say what the club wants them to say.

And then they signed self-confessed, Celtic-supporting, IRA-sympathising, Rangers-baiting, Royal-hating Joey Barton on £100,000-a-month*– and only Davie Weir is there to greet him.

Is this one last despairing move to shift season tickets to try to keep the club solvent? Does the club know that an insolvency event will render his contract meaningless? Or is his salary being paid by Gefinor?

The Ibrox club management have shown themselves incapable of financial governance and, at the same time, made the game ungovernable.

But could the “Big House” of cards finally be about to fall down?

*The original version of this said £100k-a-week. Thanks to the readers who pointed out the typo.
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Ronny Deila speaks up for Lawwell but he doesn't speak for the fans

Well, surprise, surprise - Ronny Deila has decided to tell Celtic fans that we have no right to criticise Peter Lawwell.

In doing so, he has demonstrated something about both why he got the manager's job in the first place and why it proved to be too big for him.

I dare say that if I had been given a lucrative, high-profile job which I was poorly qualified for, I might also feel inclined to defend the person who put my improbable progress ahead of the club's.

 But one of the features of Celtic in recent years has been the fawning to the corporate strategy of a succession of coaches, even when players were foisted upon them or sold from under them against their wishes.

 Ronny, like the others, is unlikely to burn his bridges in terms of a possible  return but while there have been inklings of dissatisfaction when each coach going back to, and including, Martin O'Neill have left, these have quickly been airbrushed away in a disconcerting manner.

Can you manage Celtic without being prepared to kiss Peter's ass? It's not clear that you can and there is suspicion that contract clauses to that effect have been signed.

But Ronny also shows that he has never yet got to grips with the expectations Celtic fans have.

Despite the usual claims from PLC fans, acolytes and online shills,  few, if any, Celtic supporters want the club to “spend money we don't have” - we just want players signed on the basis of what they can contribute to the team, rather than the balance sheet.

Is it really too much to want to see good players playing good football and an improving team? Is it unrealistic to want to keep the good ones for  a few seasons, instead of selling them at the first opportunity, while we get to keep the crocks, the bottlers, the bad boys, layabouts and other assorted dross?

Shouldn't we want players and teams to become legends, rather than recalling them primarily for their plus-or-minus contribution to the profit-and-loss statement?

Does Ronny think we don't deserve better, that we just aren't as smart as Peter?

Perhaps he also thinks we are wrong not to have meekly accepted being cheated out of titles and Champions League participation, the acknowledgement of the fact of Rangers being liquidated and the innumerable flagrant rule breaches which Peter has remained silent on, if not actually being complicit.

Under Peter Lawwell's period of tenure, most of the values that have made Celtic special have been erased and, worse, the fans who wanted them upheld have been mocked and derided by the PLC/Lawwell camp.

Ronny Deila is a nice and good man, who should not be condemned for genuine loyalty.

At the same time, he should not seek to lecture Celtic fans on issues that  we understand rather better than he does.

We - and generations before us - are the ones who have sustained Celtic and made the club great. Ronny's two years of service do not qualify him to dismiss our concern at the decline of Celtic and declare Peter's way to be the only way.

Ronny Deila is entitled to speak for himself and still contracted to speak for Celtic PLC. He need not think that he speaks for the fans.--

Anyone need a Number 2?

Don't ask me - I'm saying nothing!

Amid all the recrimination and justification of all and sundry over Ronny Deila's tenure as Celtic manager, some have pointed to the backroom staff.

Any manager is entitled to an assistant and coaches he can trust. These guys are not just professionals carrying out the training and tactical instructions of the manager but they are also his allies and friends, his extra sets of eyes and ears.

It is vital that he can trust them. When the going gets tough – as it inevitably will, especially at a club with the pressure associated with Celtic, these guys are the rock that the manager will lean on.

Any rebellious player will find himself facing a solid, indivisible phalanx of comrades. Gordon Strachan had Tommy Burns; Neil Lennon had Johan Mjallby and Alan Thompson; Martin O'Neill had John Robertson and Steve Walford, Billy McNeill had Tommy Craig and Frank Connor; Jock Stein had Sean Fallon.

Ronny Deila had the two Johns.

Now, I have no reason to suspect that John Kennedy is anything but a good guy. I just fail to see what he brings to the team. Having a “defensive coach” sounds oh-so-modern, and yet, Celtic often defended abysmally, persisting with a zonal marking system that the players lacked the wit to implement – and rarely appeared to understand.

And, individually, to see Dedryck Boyata running forward, losing the ball, tracking back and pulling a player down was to despair. If John Kennedy couldn't knock that out of him, what the hell was he doing?

But I was reminded recently of Eric Black, when someone touted him as a potential Celtic manager. Black, as some will remember, had a coaching role at Celtic under Wim Jansen. Wim was not the saint he portrayed himself to be but he once curiously dismissed Black as “Brown's man”, referring to the then “Manager”/Football Director Jock Brown.

It was a comment dripping with sinister undertones.

Black is a curious figure, having been appointed as caretaker manager four times in his career, on each occasion taking over from the man he was appointed to assist.

And I can't help thinking of similarities between Black and John Collins. Maybe it's the silky-skilled play they both once demonstrated, maybe it's the fact that they both went to the French league for the best payday they could get, maybe it's just the suntan.

But Collins was widely said to be a divisive figure when manager of Hibs and similar rumours persist around his dealings with Celtic.

I recall when Gordon Strachan was verbally abused by a steward at Pittodrie, having answered back some fans who had been baiting him. Clearly upset, Gordon didn't speak to the press that evening but, instead, Tommy Burns gave the TV interview in as noble and comforting a show of support as anyone could have wished for.

When Mark McGhee refused to shake Ronny Deila's hand, Ronny decided not to take the interviews. And John Kennedy gave what seemed like a professional performance, without any words of support that I read reported.

But where was John Collins? In fact, where has John Collins been at any time when the pressure was on his boss?

Remember, Collins is the one with the Celtic connection, who knows the pressure attached to the club, is familiar with the Scottish game and how the press react.

And Collins should have been the first one standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ronny when the going got tougher than any manager in the Tippeligaen has ever had it.

Perhaps the fact that Norway is a non-EU member meant that Ronny's coaches would have found it difficult to get work permits, as happened when Christian Gross went to Spurs, from Grasshoppers, though Haakon Lunov, Ronny's academic analyst, would have had skills that were not readily available in the UK, allowing him to come.

But some of the pressure on Ronny came from statements like committing himself to winning the treble, which is the sort of comment that anyone who understands the Scottish game would advise against.

Maybe Collins is being hard done by. Maybe he was just too shy to back his manager in the media – and when Kris Commons acted so disgracefully. But I hope that he didn't have the impression that Ronny's failure could have been his opportunity to step into the breach.

If he did, he must be a very disappointed man that Ronny has chosen to see out the season, rather than allowing Collins the chance to show how he could transform the team overnight.

One of the best gifts that the next manager could be given would be vacant positions to fill with his own assistant and coach – and that should happen soon.

Good luck to them both, especially Collins in finding another managerial position. He'll need an assistant. I can't recommend any individual but would it be wrong to hope that his next number two is a hedgehog?
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