20 minute Tim’s article Column: Time to Look Beyond Trophies

Well done, he’s 13.”

You’re probably familiar with that phrase and that video. If you aren’t, then here’s the link.


The video shows Michael Owen, a Ballon D’Or winning professional footballer, scoring goals past a 13 year old goalkeeper trained by legendary Welsh keeper Neville Southall. Owen celebrates his goals triumphantly, prompting the now infamous line from Southall: “Well done, he’s 13.”

What has this got to do with Celtic? You might not like my answer, or much of what I’m going to say in this column.

Domestic football has become a near meaningless year long parade for Celtic. With 10 of the league’s 12 clubs so weak financially they can’t hope to even begin to compete with the Hoops, and the remaining club run disastrously, the way is clear for Celtic to sweep up the title - and often the cups - year in, year out.

13 titles in 14 years. Five trebles and five doubles in that same period. It’s been an incredible and hugely enjoyable period of success, but with every passing title the unease grows that this is all becoming just a little too easy, that it is simply Michael Owen smashing shots past a child in goalie gloves



For some, this season has been the breaking point. I’ve heard plenty of Celtic fans say that the second half of the campaign has been incredibly disappointing. The Bayern tie was exciting, if ill-fated, but three failures to beat a terrible Rangers team and a loss in the Scottish Cup final against a bang average Aberdeen side have left many cold. There is simply no way that a season in which Celtic reached the knockout rounds of the Champions League, were inches away from setting a record for league goals scored, finished 17 points clear of Rangers and ultimately won a league and cup double would have been seen as anything other than a roaring success 20-30 years ago, but years and years of breezy success and a football landscape distorted by Champions League money have changed everything.

Plenty of fans deny the unease that is setting in, but it always finds ways to leak out - so many Celtic supporters say you cannot take success for granted, and yet the topic of Celtic Park’s ailing atmosphere has reared its head repeatedly in the past year - I even wrote about it a few months back, arguing that the lack of jeopardy is the key culprit. When fans are criticising the club’s handling of trophy day, saying it is getting ‘same-y’, with the same music and routine used again and again, it is perhaps a sign that success is taken for granted.

And after all, why wouldn’t it be taken for granted? Celtic haven’t lost a domestic home game after scoring the first goal for over a decade. The Hoops have lost two domestic home games since the Covid season. Two games. In three seasons. This season Celtic averaged nearly 75% possession. That’s a 38 game season in which almost every game has been an exercise in opposition teams parking the bus, crossing their fingers, and hoping for the best.

Here’s another video for you, as The Athletic discussed the eye watering difference in finances that exists in Scottish football. The comparison to the English Premier League, which has had its own complaints of dominance by a select group of teams, is eye opening:


No wonder most teams in the league, made up of free transfers and loans from lower league foreign sides, set up to avoid being thrashed by Champions League Celtic. Personally, I’m finding it harder and harder to be Michael Owen in that situation, pumping my fist and shouting in celebration as they are steamrollered.

That’s not really a new thing, of course - no team outside Glasgow has won the league in 40 years now - but the sheer extent of the dominance, furthered by a weak and shockingly run Rangers, is. Before 2016/17, Celtic had won three trebles in the 70 years that the League Cup had existed for. In the eight seasons that followed they added five more.

The problem there is that something which was previously regarded as the perfect season, the pinnacle of Scottish football, has become the norm - and failing to achieve it is now a crushing disappointment. This is not a happy place to be for Celtic fans, where winning everything is simply expectation and winning less than that is failure.




As a result, we as a support look for other pieces of joy, other events and other storylines that go beyond the trundling collection of trophies. Sometimes it’s things as small as Jota scoring on his return to Celtic, or James Forrest finally finding his goal in the final moment of the final game of the season. Usually it’s a bigger thing: beating Rangers, taking scalps in Europe.

This season has been a near perfect storm for causing an identity crisis for Celtic fans. How can winning a double and finishing 17 points clear feel so dissatisfying? The answer to that can be found with a woeful defeat at Ibrox, the crushing disappointment of Hamza Igamane’s late winner at Parkhead, the repeatedly missed chances at Ibrox in May. It can be found watching players like Nicolas Kühn and Jeffrey Schlupp going through the motions, barely trying because they know the league was all but won months prior. It can be found in the east stand goal at Hampden Park, where Dimitar Mitov denied a lacklustre Celtic the treble that seemed all but inevitable.

With the season reduced to a procession, a five month long victory lap, Celtic fans like me wanted those defining, exclamation mark moments to savour and watched as their team dropped the ball on almost every one. I’m sorry, but that journalist that called this the “tedious treble” was so close to being right - it became so tedious that even the team got bored and couldn’t finish the job.

The problem runs even deeper than that. A criticism regularly levelled at Celtic is that they benchmark themselves on Scottish football - and Rangers in particular - when they should be using European football as their benchmark. This is a view I agree with, and a huge part of the problem. As Scottish football gets poorer and weaker, and with Rangers floundering to keep up with Celtic’s Champions League juiced success, that benchmark actually gets easier and easier to keep up with. The impetus to improve, to keep up with the improvements that football clubs across Europe are making, simply isn’t there. When you can win the league by 17 points with barely one or two signings of any consequence in two years then why bother being introspective? Why bother striving for more?

All of this contributes to that sense of tedium that is so clearly setting in with the Celtic support. There is a hunger for novelty that Celtic are not meeting - they employ a manager on his second spell coaching a squad whose star players have all been there for four years at a minimum. As big name players like Matt O’Riley and Kyogo have left they have been replaced by either lower grade underwhelming substitutes, players who used to play for Celtic earlier in their careers, or - in the case of Kyogo - absolutely nothing at all. Where are the new heroes? Where are the storylines that define seasons?






As a result, we as a support look for other pieces of joy, other events and other storylines that go beyond the trundling collection of trophies. Sometimes it’s things as small as Jota scoring on his return to Celtic, or James Forrest finally finding his goal in the final moment of the final game of the season. Usually it’s a bigger thing: beating Rangers, taking scalps in Europe.

This season has been a near perfect storm for causing an identity crisis for Celtic fans. How can winning a double and finishing 17 points clear feel so dissatisfying? The answer to that can be found with a woeful defeat at Ibrox, the crushing disappointment of Hamza Igamane’s late winner at Parkhead, the repeatedly missed chances at Ibrox in May. It can be found watching players like Nicolas Kühn and Jeffrey Schlupp going through the motions, barely trying because they know the league was all but won months prior. It can be found in the east stand goal at Hampden Park, where Dimitar Mitov denied a lacklustre Celtic the treble that seemed all but inevitable.

With the season reduced to a procession, a five month long victory lap, Celtic fans like me wanted those defining, exclamation mark moments to savour and watched as their team dropped the ball on almost every one. I’m sorry, but that journalist that called this the “tedious treble” was so close to being right - it became so tedious that even the team got bored and couldn’t finish the job.

The problem runs even deeper than that. A criticism regularly levelled at Celtic is that they benchmark themselves on Scottish football - and Rangers in particular - when they should be using European football as their benchmark. This is a view I agree with, and a huge part of the problem. As Scottish football gets poorer and weaker, and with Rangers floundering to keep up with Celtic’s Champions League juiced success, that benchmark actually gets easier and easier to keep up with. The impetus to improve, to keep up with the improvements that football clubs across Europe are making, simply isn’t there. When you can win the league by 17 points with barely one or two signings of any consequence in two years then why bother being introspective? Why bother striving for more?

All of this contributes to that sense of tedium that is so clearly setting in with the Celtic support. There is a hunger for novelty that Celtic are not meeting - they employ a manager on his second spell coaching a squad whose star players have all been there for four years at a minimum. As big name players like Matt O’Riley and Kyogo have left they have been replaced by either lower grade underwhelming substitutes, players who used to play for Celtic earlier in their careers, or - in the case of Kyogo - absolutely nothing at all. Where are the new heroes? Where are the storylines that define seasons?





It’s hard to say what lessons need to be taken away from this campaign. A lot of this is not Celtic’s fault - they didn’t spend Rangers’ transfer budget on an appalling collection of useless no-marks, for example. A lot of it is unfixable - no amount of “getting their act together” will allow Aberdeen or Hibs to increase their wage budget tenfold and recruit players good enough to win a league title. It is unfortunately not Celtic’s fault that, in my own words previously, they are “on an island”:

“With European football set up in the way that it is, with wealth distributed in a laughably unequal way, this is the state of play for Celtic. Far, far too good for Scotland and far, far too poor to compete against the top teams of the Champions League.”

What it does mean - and this can and should have implications for Celtic - is that fans perspectives are shifting. If winning a treble has become simply an expectation, and a double a disappointment, then the club must understand that the support want more than this - they want exciting football, they want derby wins, they want novelty and excitement. Trophies are no longer the be all and end all - football thrives on stories, on jeopardy and overcoming odds.

I think we need a challenge. I welcome Rangers and Hearts’ takeovers. If Celtic will not respond to European football leaving them behind then they will at least respond to a resurgence in competition domestically.

This is a club that has grown fat and lazy on easy, empty calorie success. Celtic have become complacent and could be vulnerable to being overtaken by a lesser resourced but cleverly run opponent, just as Rosenborg were by Bodø/Glimt, or FC Copenhagen by FC Midtjylland for a period of time, or Anderlecht and Club Brugge by Union Saint Gilloise. The gap is too large for this to come from the likes of Hearts any time soon, but Rangers could be capable of it.

Sport, by its very nature, relies on competition. Of course, in any sport and at any time an individual or team can become dominant, but that dominance has to feel like it could be challenged. It has to feel like it is being earned - not just once, but again and again. With every passing season Celtic’s dominance feels less like that, and as the impetus to improve eases off and complacency sets in, the standards drop. How else can you explain a double winning Celtic team rolling out players like Liam Scales, Paulo Bernardo, Johnny Kenny and Yang when trying to win a treble?



This season feels like a watershed, a realisation that Celtic’s mission needs to shift. Chasing the treble every year is a hiding to nothing. The focus must shift to Europe, and to entertainment, and to proving to the fans that there is a project beyond being the world’s most prudently run flat track bullies. Perhaps some of you will think that’s entitled, or anathema to the Celtic you know, but when Celtic Park is emptying on the 75 minute mark every other week I know that, deep down, a lot of you agree.

 

aye winning the league every year is terrible

 

Where I don’t agree with everything written in that article, I do think it does make a number of good points.

The worry for me is that gut feeling those running the club don’t learn from previous mistakes. We seem to get to a good place and then stagnate.

- Lennon 2012 last 16 CL campaign strong squad we sell a number of good players, sign poorer players and appoint Ronny which cumulates on failing to qualify for CL proper and lose a cup semi final to championship Rangers and struggle to win the league vs Aberdeen.

- Rodgers 16/17 invincible treble, we continue to win trebles but again start selling of better players, don’t really replace and the big names we have want out COVID season happens.

- I think we have Ange 22/23 strongest squad for a while, start selling them off, replacements haven’t been up to scratch, are we heading towards another downfall?

This CL qualifier in August and a game at Ibrox are going to be massive at a very early point of the season. They go our way we will be off and running but if people want Jeopardy, those 3 games will have plenty of it.

What I hope is on the field we have a preseason like last year and we came into the season flying. Off the field we need to be far sharper in the market with both ins and outs, to get the squad into a good shape.

 

I think the new Champions League format will help clubs like Celtic a lot. More games, more chance of knockout football, bigger spread of opponents to potentially draw etc. Its easier to target knockout football in the CL than merely being content to be there and bank the money. So for me thats a bit of a game changer.

Also, things can change fast in football - as we saw the year Rangers won the title. Celtic are a transitional club that can generally expect to change manager every few years and will regularly lose their best players. A couple of bad transfer windows, a mis step in hiring a manager and the door opens for Rangers again if they start getting their house in order.

 

I think the article is spot on.

I think theres a general problem is football now where money has meant there is much less genuine competition and excitement. Celtic are probably an extreme example - we walk our domestic game yet have almost zero chance of winning the european cup we take part in. Both for the same reasons.

Of course its fun if your teams on the right side of the winning but noone would ever invent a new sport based on the same team winning. Noone writes a script for a sports movie based on the same winning consistently for the whole film. Because its not very exciting.

Im not sure why this season in particular has felt a bit flat, but it has to me. I appreciate many others get equally excited each year when we win but I feel its pretty natural that the law of diminishing returns kicks in eventually. Maybe just at a different time for different people.

 

There's a lot to agree with in the article but we can only play what's in front of us. The rot set in for Scottish football when Souness came along and then when the league messed up the tv deals at the start of this century.

 

It sounds crazy, but sooner or later, ourselves and Rangers are going to have to take the short-term hit for long-term gain and share the lion's share of the TV money with smaller clubs. Not ST money or merchandising money, as that comes from the fans and not prize money either, but the TV money (both domestic and CL).

We particularly need to find a way to channel more TV money to Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen. Most SPFL clubs are too small to ever amount to much without mergers; but these 3 (just maybe Dundee Utd too) are underperforming relative to their fan base. The potential is there for them to become challengers if they are given a leg up to start off with. As long as safeguards were in place to ensure none of the money went to Rangers no matter how poor they get or how far they fall, I'd be on board with that.

No doubt this will seem insane to a lot of people.

 

TV money domestically I’d be happy to share amongst the other teams, 3rd placed and below. With the stipulation that it goes towards development and players 21 and younger. I think winning the league the prize money TV money wise in Scotland is about £3m. It’s a pittance really, might not do much sharing it even, but I think it could be a better investment for us investing in Scottish football as a whole that.

 

IF we qualify.

 

5th in England straight in, we have a qualifier. That doesn’t feel right that.

The argument is that the teams in they leagues who finish high up the table are higher quality, and attract more viewers

 

An article trying to make someone sound intelligent and having a sophisticated understanding of our club in a way that implies the rest of us are thick…. It’s a lot of tripe designed to fill columns in a fans media at end of season. Pay little attention as most fans enjoy Europe but accept our bread and butter is Scotland and being Champions… if that happens every year all the better- why be depressed about it and trying to over analyses like this article. Accept where we play, our league and enjoy winning over our Hun neighbours. HH

 

The end of this madness is coming. Honestly, if anyone asked me to give a clear example an example of Peter Turchin's "elite overproduction" concept (originally due to Jack Goldstone), I'd point them to European football.

 

Spot on.

There’s been a lack of appreciation for domestic dominance for a while from the support IMO but the article rubs me the wrong way, suggesting we invent a narrative to celebrate like James Forrest getting his goal for 16 seasons scored against St Mirren.


That’s bullshit for me suggestions like that. That’s always been part and parcel of being a fan and supporting players we appreciate. Henrik getting the Golden Boot we all really cared about for example.

Tommy Johnstone scoring to lift the treble, him doing that as a very likeable player and Tommy Burns’s final signing we celebrated both for him doing it and found that brilliant for him as a send off, as well as sealing the Treble. It added to the narrative of that season.

There’s an underlying point I agree with but a pretentiousness and arrogance reading that article I hate.

 

For around 20 years now, when we majorly fell behind wages wise the shout has been the bubble will burst. It’s just continued to grow.

Rather than it being unsustainable, it’s more likely to just cement with the full business protecting those who are able to just now.

Look at Newcastle being took over, suddenly FFP properly got took seriously because the push back from the likes of City ffs

 

It's hard to disagree with some of the sentiment, especially regarding this season in particular.

A would be treble that was thrown away, but even if Celtic had won and both Cup Finals, which had required penalties on the back of underwhelming performances in both those matches themselves belie the seemingly impregnable domestic dominance, and this is further underlined by the string of poor showings in the derby games against Sevco.

The first half of the season there was an edge, and that was in no small part due to Aberdeen's superb start, but unfortunately it was one that they were not able to sustain that for longer. That, coupled with the Bhoys' good form in concert with (generally speaking) more mature European performances, undoubtedly helped.

There is also the fact that (and this is backed up from his first stint also) Brendan Rodgers has a number of significant limitations to his abilities as a manager, in light of the serious advantages that come from being in charge of the richest club with the most resources, especially comparison with the majority of the League.

The inability to effect change during a game beyond simple substitutions, preparational and motivational, the pressure for results and not trusting in the development and promotion from within while carrying a very ordinary track record in transfer market dealings are all among these.

St M only just scraped into the top 6, but to their enormous credit went through the post-split games undefeated - including almost pulling off a win on what should've been the Bhoys chance to turn on the style on trophy day. The following week, with an identical starting XI and exact same approach in the Cup Final, and were equally lacklustre.

The messaging in the build up was all about how it was just exactly the same as any other game and just focusing on us. The same messaging that proceeded the last few Sevco games also. Now, these are not institutional issues, nor is it a legacy issue. It is a managerial one.

No change of formation, shape, distribution or approach makes it progressively easier for teams to devise ways to play against, even for some of the limited ones. Whether that is losing to St J, inability to break down Aberdeen with the Scottish Cup (and a potential treble) on the line, yet another underwhelming trip to Easter Road (where Rodgers overall record is now W3 D2 L3) or the seemingly steel grip he once had on the Glasgow derby has completely evaporated, with 0 wins in the past 4.

When looking at how the first tenure played out and the diminishing returns during that period, there should be alarm bells going off, for this now also - warning signs that should be taking people's notice, such in the article from 20 Min Tims, and hopefully are being echoed and notice taken in the boardroom of CP and at Lennoxtown also.

This is a massive, massive summer coming up for Rodgers, and IMHO, is potentially defining of his entire legacy far more than any number of trophys won since his return. And hopefully there is good advice coming his way and that the freshness comes to reinvigorate the team.

Losing out on the Scottish Cup (and the treble) could be a blessing in disguise, if the right lessons are learned and action taken to evolve the squad and not just look to carry on doing the exact same thing tactically without fallback plans, just in case or look to experiment more with formations, style and personnel etc, that might not result in yet another 6-0 win on the day, but could provide better options for thpse days to come when things aren't working, or having to punch above weight or are called upon to need something different.

But it is also a repeated recognition of where Celtic exist; too good for Scottish Football, not good enough to compete at the business end of the Champions League. Added to that the fact that no Celtic manager has ever been given the flick because of European results. Domestic football is the bread and butter, and it is this metric by which they are benchmarked, with continental success a bonus. The extraordinary Stein days are far too far long gone and the landscape of football so utterly transformed to make matching that sort of achievement simply unattainable as it currently stands.

That all said, just because the past couple of months have at times felt a bit lacklustre in comparison to other seasons is not necessarily a Celtic as an institutional issue and nor do I want Celtic suddenly tanking, and especially do not want Sevco to win anything - ever.

Celtic's robust finances, wealth of resources both on and off the park, and level of support is such that there are areas that could help stimulate growth elsewhere for the good of the domestic game more broadly, such as forgoing domestic prize money would not be a major hit in the slightest.

While I do believe that there is more that Celtic could be doing to help, it is true also that Scottish Football authorities could and should be doing so much more to help the standard also, and have long held beliefs on how this could be achievable (negotiate improved media deal, withdraw European qualified teams from the League Cup entirely, league expansion, a potential draft for youth players and the most transformative would obviously be summer football), all of which could help raise the general level and close the gap - not entirely, but they would be proactive steps in that direction.

However, such is the nature of the game here, that there is too much short sightedness, combined with the self interest of clubs - most notably Celtic and Sevco - that it is unlikely to ever materialize.

And that is the institutional problem that has existed at the heart of Scottish Football for generations upon generations, contributing to not just the original rise of the Glasgow duopoly and the return to that, post the death of R****** and Sevco in it's place. Celtic are part of that intrinsic Scottish Football institution with it's uneven balance of power residing from Glasgow over the rest of Scotland.

And quite simply, unless others either agree to set aside self interest for the betterment of the game as a whole, then we will return to the same narratives that have been doing the rounds ad infinitum... big fish in little pond. Enough investment to maintain the position of domestic dominance, not enough to satisfy the dream of continental glory. Frustrated at the status quo, but not willing to let it go because of being the main beneficiaries of that. Far fetched flights of fantasy of leaving Scottish Football to compete either down south or in a breakaway Atlantic or Baltic league and more besides. Wary of making any too much of bold a proposed move as there is far less certainty of success compared to the safe, reliable option and the way there is now.

If Sevco had any real ambition to break away, that is precisely what they should have done, back in 2012. Starting right from the very bottom anyhow, but in the system down south for instance. But why do that, when it was so much easier, quicker and more chance of reclaming their position of privelige and prominance in Scotland, to get the leg up, that is unlikely to be met quite so favourably had they sought to begin life anew and embrace a whole new challenge than simply look to resuscitate the old.

And it is understandable why they didn't. It's the exact same reason why Celtic are where we are. Self interest in the known and the short term now, rather than the uncertainty of the unknown in a prospect for something new. It is a lot to gamble, when the safe bet is so obvious. The Board of Celtic as an institution has a duty of care, to safe guard the future of Celtic, first and foremost, so that there is a Celtic that will continue in perpetuity, and as such are always far more likely to take the sure thing.

That is the legacy, institutional and fundamental truth.

 

That’s what I’ve always said for being against fan ownership. I disagree with far too many of us to think it’s a good idea. I’m the same place as you reading that, I agree and really disagree

 

You do realize that is not how fan ownership works though? I mean, setting aside that quite simply that is in all practicality impossible to happen at Celtic anyhow, and that it is not about wanting a strong Sevco or anything like that.

But even in theory, that is not how fan ownership works, where every decision is put to a consensus vote. It works by everyone paying dues, on top of ST or whatever else. And that vote elects who will then make the decisions at the executive level and they ultimately decide who will manage or how much to invest in a project or sign off on transfer commitments etc, none of those things are consulted to the Fan Ownership.

 

The only nitpick here for me is the sentiment is what I’m disagreeing with the approach to the article more than anything

 

I know how it works mate. It’s still my issue with it. We booed Fergus McCann unveiling the flag when we stopped their 10 in a row ffs