Losing 7 goals in Barcelona may be unfortunate – 2 in Inverness looks like carelessness

“Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.”
                                                                                                                   – George Bernard Shaw

Brendan Rodgers has made a big impression in his few months as Celtic's head coach.

On arriving, he immediately spoke like a man who fully understood Celtic's values, standards and the expectations of supporters beyond the “famous club with a great history – great fans” trope that is standard fare with such appointments.

Look Mum, No hands!

There was an authenticity to Brendan's words that allowed us to take his expressions of respect for the club and its fans without salt.

That was quickly followed by the sort of football talk that reassured most of us that we had someone who knew the game. When I listen to a highly-paid expert giving a post-match analysis, I like to hear comments that I couldn't have made myself.

That gives me confidence as I am not qualified to be a football coach so banal talk about “commitment”, “belief” “finishing in the final third”, etc. – football commentators' bread-and-butter – do nothing to tell me that we have a coach for the modern game.

So, I'm really delighted that we have Brendan Rodgers and his coaching staff. We have made progress and that, I think, accounts for the difference in responses to our two big defeats by Barcelona, in recent years.

When we lost 6-1 under Neil Lennon, I was crestfallen as it was indicative of a club on the way down, with no indication of when we would touch bottom.

Last week's loss seemed like a painful setback on the way up.

I often think it's something similar to physical health.

When you're feeling okay but the symptoms of flu or something worse start showing up, it's a dispiriting, anxious feeling. When you feel pretty lousy but a lot better than yesterday, the spirits begin to rise.

Being down, looking up is always more fun than being up, looking down. Otherwise, we would never climb mountains – but it's hard to remain at the top for long.

And, so Celtic's impressive start to the domestic season has faltered, needlessly giving away two more goals and squandering a dominant position.

It's not a crisis – not even a pre-crisis warning sign – but remedial action will be needed.

We should, though, congratulate Inverness Caledonian Thistle, who gave nothing but full, professional application to their afternoon's work, took their goals well and had two arguable penalty claims.

On the other hand, while Celtic certainly played some entertaining football, the defending was alarmingly similar to the experiences that have kept us up at night over the past year-and-a-bit.

It was worrying to see how much we missed Kolo Toure at the ground of the club that then occupied bottom spot in the Premiership table.

Kolo's qualities are evident and any team would miss him but the man is 35. We should be able to rest him and have his deputies perform professionally.

That seemed too much for Celtic and that shows something of how much work has yet to be done. (Maybe our recent games will ultimately prove to have a positive effect – “like a new signing” ©BFDJ).

After the Barca game, Celtic fans were commendably understanding of the result, given the challenge faced and the early stage of development. But that sort of indulgence shouldn't be taken for granted by any of the players.

What was needed today was a professional performance – not five or six goals – just the sort of “back-to-business” response that should follow a truly awful mid-week result.

What we got was some highly-entertaining football but with hapless, leaderless defending and a sense that some of the forward players thought the win was a fait accompli.

Yes, Fon Williams was outstanding in goal (remember how that used to feel?) but that doesn't tell the whole story.

Celtic had 23 shots on goal, only nine of which were on target. That seems to reflect my perception of a game in which too many players were taking speculative efforts, instead of ruthlessly getting the game won.

And that's not good enough.

We all expect to win the league again but the Celtic shirt does not shrink to fit big-time Charlies, as a founding father might have said, if he had been watching.

We should not be defending as if scared teenagers, whenever Kolo Toure is not around, and nor should we expect three points when donning the fur coat but eschewing the intimate undergarments, in attack.

A professional performance would have been one that converted possession into chances and chances into goals in a reasonable ratio.

We cannot expect to have a properly balanced squad after a few months of the Rodgers era, following years of “asset management” by the men in sharp suits.

That said, on the back of the worst result that anyone under the age of 114 has experienced in their lifetime, some proletarian graft should have preceded any desire to be flash.

It is the natural order of things.

After failure, follows humility. With humility you learn to focus on basic values, which lead to success, which allow you to flourish.

This team is generally doing well and exceeding expectations – we are not ready for the car park.
But we need to get our priorities in focus.

Being in the Champions League is great. It is where we belong and we must rise to its challenges.

But neither are we too great for the Scottish Premiership. It is also where we belong and we must respect its challenges, too.

We have the best players, coaching staff, stadium – everything – in Scotland.

But we should always choose confident humility over arrogant complacency.

Play well, play fair, entertain – but get the job done, Celtic.
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Philosophy - and irrefutable proof that fans make football

"Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest!"
 - Thus Spake Zarathustra

It is now so ingrained in the ethos of Celtic fans that anyone who couldn't quote Jock Stein declaring that the two greatest teams in the world, without fans, are nothing would be viewed with deep suspicion.

The smart knew him to be right; the wise wouldn't have needed him to tell them.

But if any doubted the great man, they need only have witnessed Celtic playing Atletico Madrid behind closed doors, in 1985, to understand how surreal and lacking in entertainment value football without fans is.

Contrast the two occasions and results.

In one, in a hostile atmosphere, Celtic produced an excellent result. In the surreal return leg, the absence of Celtic fans was Atletico's edge.

This was, of course, a hangover from one of the worst experiences of my life supporting Celtic - the shameful Rapid Vienna affair.

Celtic were treated unjustly by UEFA but some fans were suckered, too. And how ironic that the actions of a few fans should have had such a history-defining effect on Celtic's future.

It would not be until the reign of Martin O'Neill that European football would be a positive experience for the club.

It is the presence of tens of thousands of fans, packing stadiums, that makes football and a few can undermine the experience for everyone. We have seen much of this over thelast week.

I was looking forward to the match on Saturday and, of course, very keen that Celtic should win. I explained as much on this blog.

But, however hard some try to say otherwise, I didn't have the butterflies, the anxiety or the adrenal excitement that preceded matches with the real Rangers.

None of that - the stupid superstitions, the rituals, the trying to find reassurance from other Celtic fans that we had enough to win - was there.

Yet, we witnessed a fantastic occasion.

And why? Because the ground was full and bouncing.

Tuesday was as cringe-inducing a night of football as you could ever witness. In fact, it was the sort of score against Celtic that I have always hoped never to witness.

But while the anticipation, rapidly metamorphosed into shock and then a worrying, helpless sense of inevitability, the sounds of the crowd made a no-contest into an event.

Because fans, without football, can watch Bake-Off but football, without fans, is nothing.

I have a friend who once played bass with a successful band. (He's not personally famous but  he had his moment in the sun.) He told me that the clichés about performance were true:

"The crowd gives you energy; you give it back to the crowd and then they give it back to you - amplified!"

And this was what we witnessed on Saturday – and on Tuesday (though Tuesday's recipients were not in green and white).

Yes, the game with The Rangers was a grudge match - it had added "local derby" spice and the premature rhetoric had cranked that up.

But it was neither our most difficult nor important match of the season so far. It wasn't even the most serious SPFL test, but Celtic fans spent the rest of Saturday smiling, laughing, celebrating - energised.

But that's not the whole story. All of us who have followed football know there is a joyful difference between witnessing players who can revel in such an atmosphere and those who wilt.

We've all seen them - the talented players who either get intimidated by aggressive fans in away matches or collapse under the weight of expectation, best articulated by Tony Cascarino in his hilarious autobiography. (Tony, you were so funny that I forgave you for the way you performed for us.)

Tuesday saw some do just that. The younger players, we can excuse completely. One or two more established professionals should enjoy no such indulgence.

None of the players at the Camp Nou would gain pass marks. But this was an occasion on which we saw the real “men and boys” in our own team.

Saturday was particularly enjoyable because, when the volume was cranked up to 11, we saw a team with belief in themselves, confidence in their coaches and trust in each other. On such occasions, stars rise.

And it will come as no surprise that the brightest of them all on Saturday was Moussa Dembele.

When we signed a young striker with a solid English championship season behind him, I was encouraged and pleasantly surprised. It was the sort of signing many of us had been asking for in the "on plan" years.

When he stepped up to take that penalty against Astana, many of us who had been around for a while sensed a defining moment.

Saturday was another great test, passed with flying colours and, despite being “psyched out” by the Barca keeper Ter Stegen and placing a mid-level penalty, I have no criticism of him.
Moussa has strength, close control and the ability to combine both to hold the ball in the six-yard box under intense pressure from defenders.

It is exactly the sort of skill that one former Celtic striker, now sadly reduced to being a SkySports pundit, once said he had tried to copy from Kenny Dalglish, believing that the tight confines of the playground had been an ideal training ground. (Not, not you, Andy Walker, nobody is interested in your playing style - I'm talking about Charlie Nicholas.)

People quite rightly talked about the variety of goals from Saturday but another indication of Dembele's quality was his ability to bring difficult long passes under control with his chest.

That doesn't just demonstrate learned technique but the ability to remain calm while 60,000 people are screaming at you.

And I saw no indication that he was dealing with the Camp Nou atmosphere any less well than anyone else. Playing a lone striker role against the world's best team – which is hamering your teammates behind you – is a tough task and Moussa was not the worst player on display.

Tuesday could have crushed the spirit of the team but there are still positive signs.

We have, in varying measures, skill, speed, solidity, creativity and versatility, but not enough of any of them yet. We are a long way from being a top team, as Barcelona showed – but then they have done something similar to genuinely top teams (like Valencia).

But the general direction is positive.

We faced a monumentally difficult task in Barcelona on Tuesday – and we failed.

Let's be clear - anything professional and competitive against Barca would have been a success. None of our players left with their reputations enhanced but while the occasion was too early for some, a few at least fought until the end – as always, Scott Brown – and a few let us down both in terms of performance level and courage (also known as commitment).

I expect that their names have been duly noted by the coaching staff and that they will follow some of their “team hangover” colleagues out the door when an opportunity arises.

You can make mistakes, you can play badly – not acceptable but understandable. If you play for Celtic, you better have the pride and moral courage to conspicuously give everything when things are going against you – for your teammates, your coaches and the fans.

If your hamstring has once troubled you so badly that you signalled to the bench when struggling with your lower-division rivals – and then recovered when you realised your team had used all three subs – you had better make the most of the privilege of representing Celtic against the world's finest footballers.

If an easy win makes you so cocky that you want to run around with a beachball on your head, then don't try to be the invisible clown three days later, when real footballers are running your team ragged – and real men are doing their best to try to combat it.

We have seen two mismatches over the last five days, bringing joy and discomfort to us, in equal measure.

Yet, they have both been great football occasions in their own way, because, despite the malicious jibes of those small-minded officials of a small-time club, overwhelmingly the fans made them so.

Those same fans make football – and footballers – something.

It is encouraging that almost all of our players over the two games recognised that.

Brendan Rodgers poignantly quoted Jock Stein on Saturday on the 31st anniversary of Jock's death (and the fifth anniversary of Brendan's own father).

Brendan and his coaching team – so strong on detail and so demanding of intensity – will surely be reinforcing some of Jock's simple values over the coming months.

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Celtic crushed in Catalonia. Disappointed – si! Despondent – no!

Sometimes you have to take your licks in football and tonight was one of those occasions.

Should we ever think that losing 7-0 is acceptable? Of course not.

Welcome to Catalonia: Thanks, I think.

But there are times to recognise the excellence of our opponents and to decline the invitation to panic.

Most Celtic fans had a gnawing suspicion that Barcelona could run run up several goals against us. We just hoped it wouldn't be too bad.

And while going into every match with the expectation of a chance of winning is what a top club should aspire to, it was difficult to see how we would prevent Messi, Neymar and Suarez from scoring, aided by the sheer mesmerising creativity of Iniesta and a host of other stars.

Simply, Scottish teams have had no difficulty in scoring against us and Hapoel Beer Sheva netter against us twice in both legs, so arguably the most potent strike force that football has ever seen always looked likely to score three or more.

That it was so many smarts, naturally, but how do we respond?

We can panic, start berating our players and choose despondency or we can take a broader perspective in our disappointment.

We have defensive shortcomings that have only partially been addressed, a dearth of players with top-level experience and a thin squad.

For some of those players, the size of the occasion appeared to be too much, which is no surprise when going a goal down within three minutes in the Camp Nou.

That exacerbated our problems as the tension showed in some of our passing with loose balls and a reluctance to commit to going forward exacerbating the pressure of a relentless Barcelona.

With one or two more years of experience, some of those passes would have been attacking and a little more accurate. That same hesitancy was also evident in some of the running, meaning that good possession was turned into more and more Barca pressure.

But this was quite literally the hardest task that football could offer and came at a very early stage in the Brendan Rodgers reign. It should also be noted that those squad shortcomings have been several years in the making.

Nevertheless, clear progress has been made.

We have some genuine young talent, a coaching team that understands what they have to do to make progress and – crucially – growing confidence in the squad.

And that confidence is what we must guard most preciously of all.

A result such as this could crush the confidence of some of these players and bring us right back to where we started on day one. Fans putting pressure on the team or coaching staff will only undermine our aspirations of improving.
So, however hard, let's take it, support the team and help them grow.

We have other hard tests ahead of us – and some key additions will be needed in the next transfer window – but there is more to come from this team and it can still make us proud.
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