IS KJETIL KNUTSEN CELTIC’S NEXT MANAGER? AND IF SO, WILL HE SUCCEED?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 18 minutes ago
- 4 min read
There’s been quite a fuss online today since Skybet, one of the UK’s biggest online bookies, announced that they had suspended betting on Kjetil Knutsen to be the next Celtic manager.
Every other bookmaker of note has him as the odds-on favorite to be the next manager of Celtic.
Paddy Power declined to comment as, in their own words: “We’re far too busy winding up Rangers fans on Twitter!”
Anyway, I digress.
If The Club Names Kjetil Knutsen Celtic’s Next Manager, I’ll be Delighted, But Also, Cautious
Knutsen was one of the more promising contenders I looked at when I penned my first of two speculative pieces about a week ago asking who Celtic’s next boss could be.
At the time Kieran McKenna was the favorite, but if I’m being honest, he was probably my personal third or fourth choice.
I rated both Knutsen and former Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou as better options, in my personal opinion. It’s no slight on McKenna, I just find his lack of European experience and the fact he’s never managed a club where winning every week is the expected norm, to be a bit of a turn off.
I’ll also reiterate that I think Kevin Muscat would have been an excellent candidate, and not just because his appointment would make recent meltdowns among the Ibrox Klan seem like minor temperature fluctuations by comparison.
I genuinely think he’s a good manager, who sets his team up to play football the right way and has had a very successful managerial record so far.
But anyway, the last thing Celtic want right now is a divisive appointment and, thanks to those 22 appearances he made for Rangers (Requiescat in Pace) more than 20 years ago, he would not be welcome by some fans.
Perhaps only Robbie Keane would be a more divisive appointment. But my personal distain for him, and indeed the distain many other Celtic supporters have for him, is already a matter of well-documented public record.
Anyway, back to Kjetil Knutsen. Reports coming out today suggest that he is interested in coming to Celtic. His Bodo/Glimt contract expires in December, so that would fit with the timeline speculated upon by former Celtic boss Gordon Strachan last week.
However, it also means that we’re not going to have much time to get the “back of house” as it were, in order before an absolutely crucial January transfer window is upon us.
As I said last week, I think making Kjetil Knutsen Celtic’s next manager would be a good choice.
But I do have one major concern.
The massive uptick in the performance levels of the Celtic players (last night’s gubbing in Denmark notwithstanding) has made it very easy for our wannabe owner Dermot Desmond to further sell the narrative that everything gone wrong at Celtic over the past 9 months or so was entirely Brendan Rodgers’ fault.
You and I know that is not true. Rodgers certainly had his faults, and I believe, Knutsen would do far better with the tools currently at his disposal at Celtic than Rodgers did in the last few months of his tenure.
However, just bringing in a new manager will not solve the underlying issues.
My biggest concern about making Kjetil Knutsen our new manager isn’t his ability to manage the team, nor is it his ability to develop talent, play attractive football and elevate Celtic’s currently deflated standing in Europe.
He ticks all those boxes and more, his ongoing success at Bodo/Glimt reflects that.
However, we also need to admit that the Bodo/Glimt success story is not just down to the manager. They are a far better run club at almost every conceivable level than Celtic currently are.
Ultimately, I don’t know, indeed no-one outside of Bodo/Glimt’s boardroom probably knows just how much of their progress in recent years is down to the manager and how much of it is down to them having all the systems in place behind the scenes that Celtic do not.
My biggest worry, and I hope it’s a totally unfounded one, is that Knutsen might come to Celtic and face similar problems to those encountered by former Rangers (Requiescat in Pace) manager Paul Le Guen.
Le Guen came from France, where player recruitment, day to day training and a number of other duties were carried out by the club on his behalf. However, when he arrived at Ibrox, he was told that it was his responsibility to handle all these issues as well as tactics and team selection.
In other words, the job Le Guen ended up being asked to do was vastly different from the one he had previously done at Lyon.
That’s my fear for Knutsen. He is, I believe a big part of Bodo/Glimt’s recent success, and I have absolute faith in him as a manager. I do not however, have much faith, as things currently stand, in the people behind the scenes at Celtic to meet his expectations in terms of the necessary support, budgetary requirements and general professionalism.
Knutsen will have done his homework, as indeed will any manager seriously considering coming to Celtic, now or in the future.
It can’t be denied though, that the poison pen letter our largest shareholder issued shortly after our last manager departed the premises will make anyone think very carefully about coming to manage us.
Because if it doesn’t work out, for whatever reason, they could just as easily end up the receiving end of a similarly vitriolic tirade in the not-too-distant future.
I believe Kjetil Knutsen is good enough for Celtic. But the real question should be, will Celtic be good enough for him?