The board

John McGarry in the mail

By the time the 100th minute of a desperate struggle against Kairat had come and gone, it had become impossible to ascertain what Celtic’s plan was.

Liam Scales, nominally a centre-half, was playing at left back. Daizen Maeda no longer seemed sure if his role was through the middle or out on the flank. Shin Yamada, a striker who’d replaced a midfielder in Benjamin Nygren, was everywhere the ball had just been.



A bench which began with £6million Auston Trusty and £11m Arne Engels seated on it had been accommodating £9m Adam Idah since half-time with James Forrest giving the Irishman company once his 34-year-old legs could give no more.

With a bang average visiting team comfortably defending their box on the rare occasion a dismal Celtic side ventured anywhere near it, there was an air of resignation among the home support long before the Norwegian referee mercifully blew for time.

If ever a display mirrored a club’s off-field preparation for a match then this was it: The most pitiful transfer windowin recent memory manifest in a woefully inadequate show.


While Brendan Rodgers’ players still ought to have acquitted themselves far better than they did, it was telling that the fingers of blame were angrily pointed in the direction of chief executive Michael Nicholson and chairman Peter Lawwell.



Frankly, the level of rancour in the stadium suggested it’s going to take more than an unlikely triumph in Kazakhstan on Tuesday to stop the disconnect between the supporters and the boardroom from deepening.

Celtic’s hierarchy had known that Scotland’s champions would require to negotiate a play-off match since April of last year.

They made £40m through direct entry last season. With a modest investment across the past two months, they’d have been all but assured of banking that gargantuan sum again.

Instead, a squad with glaring inadequacies must pull this one out of the fire next week. Make no mistake - if they fail, it will be nothing short of a humiliation. Rarely has the old wisdom about what happens when you fail to prepare felt more apt




In the media room afterwards, the manager did his best to answer questions which mostly related to the chants of ‘Sack the Board’ - the response of thousands present to the lack of backing he’s enjoyed from his paymasters to this stage.

When pointedly asked if the fans should fans accept how their club’s being run, the Northern Irishman played a straight bat. ‘Well listen, that’s not for me to answer.’ In other words, ask those above me.

If only we could. This speaks to one of the main issues at Celtic. The complete lack of communication between the boardroom and the rank and file.

If the directors did hatch a plan beyond crossing their fingers and toes to get through this tie, then no one has made it known. It’s not a good look to be stockpilingmoney when the team is crying out for reinforcements.


Has Nicholson hit the bar with a succession of deals for players with pedigree or has he not even come close? In the unlikely event that he ever agrees to be scrutinised on the matter, it would be interesting to hear.

From 20 paces, the picture is inscrutable. At last check, Celtic had £65.4m in the bank - with the promise of more money to come from the back end of last season’s commendable run in Europe.

Another £10m was piled on top when Kyogo Furuhashi left for Rennes in January. A further £16.5m followed when Nicolas Kuhn joined Como.

As well as the regular season ticket money, the pot was further swollen by the sales of Gustaf Lagerbielke and Kwon Hyeok-kyo.


All told, that’s approximately £100m. More than enough to bolster the squad with plenty left in reserve.

But instead of refuelling the vehicle and trying to go one better than their near miss against Bayern Munich, Celtic have put a few drips in the tank.

Kieran Tierney returned from Arsenal on big wages but for no transfer fee. The £1.8m spent on Nygren from Nordsjaelland is the biggest outlay so far with Yamada costing £1.5m from Kawasaki Frontale.

As well as the outgoing transfers of Furuhashi and Kuhn, the side has lost Jota to a long-term injury. That’s an awful lot of pace, ingenuity and goals.


The need to compensate for that ahead of Kairat was abundantly clear. Rodgers said it time and time again. They had the funds, yet they failed to deliver. You cannot blame those who’ve parted with their hard-earned cash feeling angry at watching the engine cough and splutter on Tuesday.

Celtic as a club have never been more astute at making money. Their inability to reinvest it this year made Tuesday’s debacle feel like an accident waiting to happen and again raises questions about how it operates.

Appointed head of football operations in October, one of Paul Tisdale’s stated roles included the ‘identification and development of talent’.

What’s become of him? Have the targets he’s presumably flagged up not matched up with the manager’s expectations? Or have the club simply not been able to get deals over the line? Whatever the reason, it’s clearly dysfunctional.




There was a moment towards the end of Rodgers’ pre-match press conference on Monday which got lost at the time but is now worthy of revisiting.

Asked why Hayato Inamura, a defender who joined to much fanfare from Albirex Niigata, wasn’t in his Champions League squad, the manager’s answer was revealing.

‘Yeah, very easy,’ said the Rodgers. ‘He’s not quite at the level, as of yet, that I would expect.


Seriously? So why, you might well ask, is he even here? Who’s sanctioning a move for a 23-year-old who isn’t up to scratch when the team’s crying out for players to help them reach the Champions League? It doesn’t smack of a club where everyone is on the same page.



Rodgers stopped just short of admitting this is the heart of the matter after Tuesday’s stalemate.

‘I don’t necessarily need control,’ he stressed. ‘If there’s alignment, I want what’s best for the football team.’

While it would be hard to argue that Idah, Trusty, Arne Engels or Paulo Bernardo (an unused sub against Kairat) have delivered value for money so far, a failure to give the manager what he so clearly needs to take the club forward serves no purpose.

It’s all becoming very reminiscent of seven years ago when Rodgers’ barbs at the board preceded a loss to AEK Athens at this juncture and his departure in the February.



As things stand, the smart money is on him heading for the hills when his contract expires next summer. The difference, this time around, is that no one will blame him.

 

That’s an excellent piece from McGarry.

 

We need everyone to make their voices heard - not just individuals or small pockets of supporters, everyone

 

Absolutely. This has gone on for far too long and facts are at this point the ultra conservative approach is not only deliberately holding the club back from being competitive at a Champions League level it is dangerously close to costing us domestically as well. It is clear this very cautious approach when it comes to player recruitment is long past its sell by date. We badly need new people on the board who can bring new ideas and put an actual strategy in place both for the short and long term that can take us forward as a club both on and off the field.

 

See being a journalist is it not supposed to be about getting to the bottom of the story. Brendan continually pursued about signings and having to dance around the answers. Surely the journalists should be requesting interviews with board members. Some chairman are never off the telly talking about their vision and plans for their club. Why is no one chasing up ours and asking for the answers?

 

The one thing I don’t get is the “exceptionally well run football club”. The football is the most important component, so should be the focus. It’s negligence not replacing Kuhn, Kyogo, and covering Jota. As well as the other areas we need to improve. So it’s not a well run football club. And “excellent player trading model” suggests trading…selling and buying…we are good at selling but * at buying. * scunnered with this

 

Your so right about the player trading model. Credit where it is due for the most part we do a good job on the selling front. But the buying front forget about it we are an absolute shambles at this point still refusing to invest in the team within a timely manner so we can actually look to move forward as a club. Its so crystal clear that we need new people on the board with ambition and new ideas as the status quo is clearly not fit for purpose.

 

See on private companies, if any employees were to cost that company £50million. They'd be sacked. Not here, not us. Just be swept under the carpet and Rodgers and the team hung out to dry and the customer base told shut the * up and get on with it.

 

The lack of competition and quality in Scotland has bred a lot of bad habits and created a false impression on the surface around how well the club is run.

Most of the money the board "makes" is just via a fairly soft entry route into Europe. Id say the bulk of the cash sitting in the bank is just money we got for direct entry into CL that we didnt have to work for - rather than strategic brilliance.

If we were run in this fashion in a more competitive league I think it would be exposed. It doesnt really get exposed in Scotland because we enjoy naturally large advantage over almost all of the competition. And our only real rival happens to have been run abysmally.

 

Spot on.

When people say we are an exceptionally well run football team, I dont think we agree on what a football team is there to do.

Similarly when people say the board are risk adverse, I dont think they understand risk! Our strategy, if you can call it that, is so risky it is almost wreckless.

 

aye it feels like the fundamental purpose is forgotten and all that’s looked at is the bank statement. And even then, there’s a 40 mill pot sitting there that, with modest investment, probably still even half of what we have brought in this summer alone, is there for the taking. Every way I look at it I just can’t understand it.

 

It fairly soul destroying alright.

The combination of the changes to the Champions League format, having an ambitious managers like Rodgers in place and a healthy amount of money in the bank had aligned perfectly for the club to try and change gears.

Its been double down on the old strategy and them some though. And now staring down the barrell of another humiliating Champions League exit. Maybe the worst one yet.

Even if we get through, the optimism around the club is in the *. I think team would be rag dolled in the Champions League. It needs a lot work to even make up the numbers as it stands now. The thought of going to a Liverpool, City, Paris etc - pretty terrifying.

 

Is any department of this club excelling, except the * that fires out the Adidas merch emails? He’s class.

The squad, the woeful recruitment, the contempt from the out of touch board, the lack of communication, and fan engagement - these are all obvious.

However the outdated stadium, the state of pitch already with winter to come, the filthy concourses and toilets, the * club media, season ticket price hikes, friendlies and European games removed from season tickets, safety concerns in the stadium, dugouts getting built over fans’ views with no prior warning, and so many other issues often go under the radar.

Where are we actually meeting expectations across the entire club?

Lazy and arrogant across all levels.

 

Some good points that are totally buried within a number of easily fielded AGM type questions.
As a message, its way too long and broad - it lacks focus and a key point.

Any effective message must be short, clear and concise.
Transparency and accountability together with fan engagement should be the focus.
Protests and boycotts the mechanism.

 

They are incompetent and not fit for purpose. In any other line of work, they'd be sacked. Fans need to pull together on this. Not just fan groups. All these podcasts need to do their bit now as well as well as the fans in the ground.

 

The only time we hear from them is at the AGM and they often have a little dig at rangers to set a benchmark that as long as Celtic are better than Rangers, they have been successful. Our CEO and CFO have as easy positions as they will ever find given that is the benchmark theyve set themselves.