Born Celtic

There has been plenty said about Celtic and how it has conducted it’s business this summer.

In fact, you could extend that to as far back as October last year when the Hoops walls started crashing down around them at the beginning of the end of the Neil Lennon era.

However, Times reporter Michael Grant, was written a fascinating piece this morning where he takes aim at every failing of the Celtic board.

From the dithering of the appointment, or non appointment, of Eddie Howe where Grant describes it as, “The Celtic board waited an eternity for Eddie Howe to piss or get off the pot only for them to be the ones caught with their pants down when he eventually said no.“

To the clubs failed transfer policy of holding onto players for a year longer than they should have emanated itself onto the park to the degree where the fans where protesting for the removal of Neil Lennon, only for the Parkhead powermen to dither another six months on that decision.

A decision that eventually cost Celtic every major trophy they had dominated for last four years.

But the one damning and overall shot to the head to the Celtic board in Grant’s piece was this, “So, just to be clear, this is not a club synonymous with decisiveness and swift decision-making.

“Landing Ange Postecoglou within days of the custard pie from Howe was done out of panic and necessity.

“For years Celtic prided themselves on being financially prudent and stable when in fact that caution and conservatism on the board — both small and capital C applies — also informed and underpinned their wider decision-making.

“They don’t sign players quickly enough, they take aeons to get rid of a manager or appoint one, and they have three senior directors who have been on the board for a combined 62 years, yet it’s being suggested that when McKay’s face didn’t fit they were so clear-headed about it he was gone in 71 days.“

Bingo! And there it is. Right on the money.

As soon as the board realised McKay’s face didn’t fit, he was gone.

They thought they had hired a yes man when in fact they took on a man who had genuine ambition to take the club forward.

A man the supporters would have loved.

But ambition costs money. And spending money will cost bonuses.

And we just simply cannot have that. Can we?

Every time the man speaks, the more I am impressed with him.

With Celtic about to face Real Betis in tomorrow nights Europa League Group match in Seville, the Hoops find themselves fraught with injury worries.

The Parkhead side are missing Kyogo, Callum McGregor and Greg Taylor through injury and with Liel Abada sitting this one out due to his religious beliefs, Celtic find themselves with a mountain to climb as they prepare to face a top La Liga side.

When asked in his pre match press conference if he would look to change his approach to the tie and try to snatch a point away from home, Postecoglou was in defiant mood and said trying to approach a game that way is dangerous, “Well, my philosophy is if you win games you got a good chance of progressing.

“So that’s irrespective of home and away and I think even more so in Group Stages.

“I think if you start thinking about scratching around for point here or there or we’re trying to accumulate a certain amount of points to get through, I think it’s not the kind of football team we want to be.

“We’ll go there and try to win the game of football and that doesn’t change and our approach won’t change. It’s not the we don’t recognise the opposition or the difficulty of the opposition or playing away from home.

“I understand all that but I think, playing for those kind of outcomes is just fraught with danger. You’re kind of starting already with conceding something and I’m not prepared to concede anything to anyone in any way shape or form with the football teams I’m in charge of.

“We’ll go there, what I do know is the game starts 0-0 and then you got 95 minutes to try and win a game of football.”

4 Tims and Podcast has been running for just over two years now and have covered a variety of topics covering Celtic Football Club.

In this episode the boys are talking about issues the fans have with the board, Dom McKay and where the club moves forward in terms of it structure and Andy was very focal with the issues he believes are at the heart of the Dom McKay debacle, “I know a lot of fans still have a problem with the board.

“They think they don’t want to push the club forward or want to modernise the club and there’s been plenty examples over the last sort of 15 years and I don’t blame anybody who’s got that image of the board in their mind. I probably agree with that as well.

“The one that worries me is I know Ange was out yesterday and it was my post match press conference just saying not really wanting it said that it was McKay that brought him to Celtic.

“But the thing is McKay was probably working with Ange to identify a director of football, from what you’ve been told or some sort of technical director so the fact we don’t have that in is a worry.

The background structure of the club is one that has always been a concern for the fans, especially as there is no head of recruitment and now no CEO.

The club need to sort out these issues as soon as possible as the board are now starting to look like an amateurish outfit the longer this shambles continues.

Well that was fast. After three and a half days, a report from The Athletic claims they have explained the mysterious reason why Dom McKay has left the club.

Out of all the wild theories that have been mooted about, Kieran Devlin of The Athletic claims ‘sources’ have lifted the lid on the biggest story of the weekend when he wrote, “Sources have spoken of receiving mixed, contradictory messages from different club figures.

“One described Celtic as being “painfully slow” in some discussions and several mentioned not receiving replies to messages for days or sometimes weeks.

“When replies did come, they would sometimes be from a different club figure.

“One source described it as “messy, everyone stepping on each other’s toes”. More than one target is said to have been missed out on during this process.”

So he’s explained it with no real answers and just speculation from an unnamed source? Am I reading that correctly?

Granted, Celtic’s and Dom McKay’s statements were vague, unclear and left more questions than answers but to claim the former CEO’s exit has been explained without any real or substantial evidence is just plain wrong.

This kind of speculation does more harm than good. It questions the integrity of Celtic’s operation and also the professionalism of McKay without having to provide a single shred of evidence.

I actually have more respect for the pundit’s that at least put their names to their opinions because at least then, there is a level of accountability that can be held against it.

I am sure, in time, that we will find out the exact reasons at what happened behind the scenes, and Dom, if you’re looking for someone to pen your book, I am very reasonably priced!

Former Celtic target, John McGinn, was the victim of some horrific sectarian abuse on Saturday during Aston Villa’s 3-0 away defeat to English Premier League rivals Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

On a video posted to Twitter, McGinn looks to take a corner at the end of the home fans and in the video the fan can be heard shouting all manner of sectarian abuse.

McGinn was clearly uncomfortable and ignored the fan but you could see that the former Hibs man, and lifelong Celtic fan, was affected by it.

The man, with a clear English accent, can be heard very clearly in a shocking tirade that lasted only thirty seconds, but left an incredibly bad taste in my mouth, “Boo.

“Ya f*cking fenian b*stard! John McGinn ya dirty c*nt! F*ck off.

“Ya w*nker! We are the people! Booo!”

😥😥You can take them out of the West of Scotland but you can’t take the West of Scotland out of them!😥😥 pic.twitter.com/RisuOETzw9

— Bun Beag Brian (@BunbegB) September 12, 2021

Strangely, there seems to be no coverage of this incident from any major news channels and as the Scottish game is still reeling from the sectarian fallout over the events of the last few weeks, this just proves that the narrative of a “West of Scotland” problem is a myth and sectarian abuse and narrow mindedness affects all parts of the UK.