CELTIC EUROPEAN DISASTER WAS MORE THAN A DECADE IN THE MAKING
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Aug 27
- 3 min read
I saw a series of quotes today from previous Celtic managers that laid bare the root causes of last night's disastrous defeat to Kairat Almaty in the UEFA Champions League Play-off round.
However, the shocking thing about these comments wasn’t just the timespan they covered, but also the near identical nature of them, and the complete inaction from those higher up within Celtic in terms of dealing with them.
From Deila to Lennon, Postecoglou and Rodgers (Twice) Celtic European Quotes All Too Familiar
Let’s begin with what Brendan Rodgers had to say in Kazakhstan last night:
“We are clear on where we need to improve, and for whatever reason we haven't been able to. There's only so many ways that I can dress up that we don't have the players here. It was pretty clear.”
Pretty clearcut stuff, and these comments will surprise no-one who has been listening to anything the Celtic boss has had to say this summer.
Now let’s look at what Ange Postecoglou had to say in similar circumstances in January 2023, the last transfer window where he served as Celtic manager before leaving for Spurs:
“Maybe I wasn’t clear enough, I don’t know. I think I’ve been pretty consistent in saying we need more players in.
Obviously, I haven’t done a good enough job convincing people we need to bring people in. I’m not going to shy away from it. I’ve tried to be as forceful as I can”
All that was missing there was a couple of sarcastic insertions of the word “mate” to let us know how the big Aussie was really feeling about having his hands tied by Celtic’s moneymen.
Yet, this same pattern goes back further still.
Here’s what Neil Lennon had to say at the onset of the utterly horrific covid season that saw us blow ten in a row and collapse like few Celtic teams in our history have done before.
The Celtic legend said in the autumn of 2020: “There was a lot we wanted to do in the summer, but the financial reality and club strategy meant you can’t always act as quickly as you’d like. Sometimes it feels like the process is just too slow.”
His predecessor, and the prodigal son of Celtic managers, Brendan Rodgers had this to say shortly before leaving for Leicester in early 2019.
“We have a recruitment model here. I can only work within that. We identify the players we want, but there’s often a delay in negotiations. By the time a deal goes through, the market has moved on. That’s always frustrating.”
Noticing a pattern yet?
Even Ronny Delia, probably the least likely to rock the proverbial boat of any Celtic manager in the past few decades, had his own thoughts on the difficulty of getting essential deals done.
He said back in 2015: “We had players we wanted to bring in, but things take too long. Negotiations drag, and by the time we get them, the market has moved on. It makes it difficult to get the squad together quickly. That’s frustrating because it slows down preparation for the season.”
Credit to the account @thecelticalberto on Blusky for finding these quotes.
Of course, from 2015 to today, as we can see Celtic have changed manager several times. However, we haven’t had such frequent rotation in the boardroom.
We’ve had a variety of different managers try a variety of different approaches over this decade. Whilst domestic success has, for the most part, become the norm at Celtic, European progression continues to be beyond us.
In that time, for all the utter chaos off the park (and I’m not just talking about the mass outbreak of statue molestation in George Square in 2021) Rangers have appeared in a European final, despite being an utter train wreck domestically.
The common at Celtic isn’t one of managerial styles or of player quality. You might like Brendan Rodgers’ style you may not.
I did briefly find myself muttering today “All I want is Ange back and a bag of cans”. But then again, we all have our personal preferences.
As these managers can’t be wrong and the Celtic board be right. Something has to give. We’ve tried freshening up the managerial team and the squad several times over the past decade, yet European stagnation has, largely, continued.
It’s time we tried freshening up things in the boardroom. If we, the fans, could all see this coming, and clearly our current and former managers could too, why couldn't the board? Or did they just choose to ignore the signs?
