Where Do Celtic Go From Here?
It’s the 25th of August and Celtic are leading in LASK. A Callum McGregor opener means the Hoops are 4-0 up across the two legs. Champions League football beckons. The positive start in Austria compounds what’s been a really strong beginning to the season.
With four wins in the opening four games, and just one goal conceded along the way, a feel-good factor has been restored. The jubilant travelling support even begin to sing in chorus, “This is the day we win away.”
Minute 31 arrives. Benjamin Nygren receives a ball from Cameron Carter-Vickers. The Swede has been in excellent form, scoring in all four of the opening matches. However, he lackadaisically gifts the ball to Moses Usor, the Nigerian forward ever so grateful to finish past Viljami Sinisalo. Four more goals would travel past Martin O’Neill’s men that night, with another season of Europa League football awaiting.
From that exact moment, Celtic and Nygren have never recovered their early season swagger. Three of the four following domestic victories were by just one goal, before the disastrous triple-header last week.
Some underwhelming performances were followed by a horrendous week of three straight losses and renewed questions about the club’s direction. Make no mistake, the Hoops have spiralled into a crisis. So much so that Martin O'Neill has admitted he will carefully consider his future over the international break.
From the outside, it may be difficult to understand. His side sit top of the table by two points and there are still seven games left to secure Europa League qualification.
Yet, it’s the manner of the performances that has alarmed. One week ago, Celtic were bullied at Ibrox and rightly lost 3-0. On Thursday evening, Ferencvaros waltzed around a lifeless Celtic Park, putting another three past the Bhoys. At the weekend, Celtic had a chance to get some revenge but failed miserably, losing once more to bitter rivals Rangers, again failing to score. It means that the Hoops have scored just two goals in the last four matches.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. O'Neill did make some major tactical changes. The Northern Irishman employed a 3-4-2-1 system, akin to that of Wilfried Nancy, the only difference being that there were traditional wing-backs instead of wingers out wide.
On the surface, it made sense. Celtic were overpowered in midfield last week and frequently played over the top. Yet, what works in theory doesn’t always transpire on the field.
It’s important to remember that players make systems, not the other way around. With this understanding, the line-up on Saturday was never going to give the Champions the best chance of winning.
A central overload in the middle? Sounds good, yeah?
Yet, there becomes a slight problem when that four includes an ageing Callum McGregor, Mika Baur, Benjamin Nygren, and Luke McCowan.
The McGregor, Baur, and Nygren trio were outrun and outfought last week. The natural fourth man should have been Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who, even though he is no spring chicken, still possesses considerable running power. Legitimate arguments could have been made to include Oliver Sørensen as well. The 24-year-old has featured briefly but has considerable running power and a better physical presence. Instead, O'Neill opted for McCowan, essentially weakening an already fragile side from last week.
Moreover, while Colby Donovan got up and down the flanks with ease, Tierney really struggled to keep up. The 29-year-old doesn’t have the engine he once had, frequently struggling to see out games at left-back for 90 minutes. Expecting him to be able to cover the whole side was never going to work. Even Nancy knew better. Yang would have thrived in that role, but unfortunately, the Asian Games didn’t allow that.
So, come half-time and a goal down, O'Neill changed the shape to a 4-4-2, with Scales playing at left-back, Tierney and Nygren as wide midfielders, Baur and McGregor in the middle, plus Høgh and Duran up front.
Of course, that didn’t work either. With Nygren offering little on the right-hand side and Scales and Tierney on the left, Celtic failed to reach the byline. Plus, with Kim consistently cutting in, Dan Neil and Nico Raskin were aided by an extra man again in the centre, just like last week.
So, the changes at half-time somehow managed to make an already disjointed Celtic side look even worse. Soon after, James Forrest replaced Nygren on the right-hand side.
Amid all this flurry of action, there was some really dreadful and disjointed football being played by Celtic. On the ball, they seemed unsure of how to attack Rangers, with no rhythm or pattern to their play. Off the ball, they were all at sea and the Ibrox side cut through them with ease.
By the end, two more wingers, Haissem Hassan and Sebastian Tountekti, joined, as did Chelsea’s Shim Mheuka. It was simply chaotic and last-ditch stuff in a desperate situation.
The most damning verdict of the coaching team, and O'Neill in particular, is that the side didn’t look like they were even coached. They seemed confused and Cameron Carter-Vickers confirmed as much after the match, saying that it was too “random”.
So, it paints a rather concerning picture, to say the least.
O'Neill spoke after the match, talking about his future:
“It's a matter of whether I can help the team. The manager is supposed to be able to do that. I will look at that this week. I think every single time something crops up and things don't go so well, age plays a part. And, do you know what, they might be right. I'll be 110 in two years' time, so it might be time to wrap it up. I will reflect on the games and speak to the board. You never know, they may well want to speak to me. I'll try to get a couple of days away and see how it goes.”
But while O'Neill is a current issue, as he is failing to get a tune out of these players, he is not THE issue.
Season after season, transfer windows pass and Celtic fail to get business done in time. So, they scramble for late deadline-day deals, which are usually not their first or even second choices anyway. Shockingly, the players don’t bed in and the Hoops are left even worse off than they were last season.
Of the 10 permanent and loan signings made this summer, only Camilo Duran and Baur started on Sunday.
Furthermore, it’s not as if you could say this should be a really hard side to break into. Every area of the pitch is underperforming while Alistair Johnston, Yang, Callum Osmand, and Jota are all unavailable.
Plus, you just know that Celtic won’t have any sort of contingency plan in place to replace O'Neill. After all, the only reason he is still there is because he stepped in to bail out a board that had absolutely no idea where to go after a disastrous Nancy tenure.
So, it leaves Celtic in a strange situation. My general opinion is that O'Neill should never have been in the job in the first place this summer.
Yes, he did an incredible job stabilising the team in a period of immense uncertainty throughout last season.
As for stabilising a team and building one (for a man who has been out of football since 2019) - those are two completely different jobs.
So, where do Celtic go from here? It’s hard to say. It’s chaotic, it’s unpredictable and, more to the point, it’s all so needless.
Comments