Where did this all start?

The day they appointed Neil Lennon in the shower, a dinosaur of a manager who has no place in the modern game. This was always coming

 

He was more or less checking out the night AEK Athens eliminated us, that interview spoke volumes about the situation.

 

The cracks were beginning to show when Rodgers was in charge, He had obviously identified players needed to strengthen the team and take us forward both domestically and in Europe however, Lawell probably believed we didn't need to spend money (his first love) as we were winning domestic titles etc. which he believed would keep all us natives happy. So, while Lawell was taking his eye off the bigger picture (like making some progress in Europe and ensuring we maintained domestic superiority) we steadily regressed in all areas. We have witnessed this particularly in Europe where we have been getting knocked out in the qualifiers by teams that, realistically, we would have beaten in previous years and we always enter those qualifiers totally unprepared due to our * poor signing policy. Domestically we have allowed the huns under a novice manager to * away the dream of doing the 10 and who knows if we will ever have that opportunity again. We all seen the warning signs in the League Cup Final when, in all reality, the huns should have won but, once again, they chose to ignore it and then to cap it off, they appointed NL manager in the showers at Hampden when the vast majority of our fans where against it. It has been a total shambles and one the club might take years to fix and, like the Kelly regime, they will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

 

Poor player and manager recruitment is main reason we are where we are. Recruitment is the responsibility of the CEO.

I would say the downfall started the summer before the 18/19 season when we missed out on key targets like McGinn and Paccini. That was the beginning of the end in terms of the Lawwell-Rodgers relationship.

Prior to that though there was a series of underwhelming signings / transfer windows. The core of Rodgers title winning sides was always players he inherited from Delia: McGregor, Tierney, Armstrong, Lustig, Forrest, Gordon etc.

Since Rodgers left, the demise has accelerated. If the Huns didn’t collapse last season, who knows how that title race would have went? They’ve been close to us for a couple of seasons now and have shot themselves in the foot more than us being better.

Appointing Lennon was always a recipe for disaster. But the capitulation this season exceeds our worst nightmares.

 

This is a tremendous piece and could not be more accurate. Bravo sir

 

The current debacle started with the appointment of a failed Bolton and Hibernian manager in the showers(!) at Hampden Park, but clearly the problems run much deeper than Lennon.

 

Bit contradictory is it no ? Lennon takes most of the blame.

 

Some good comments in here, I would agree with quite a few of them.

This season, for me, the actual day where it spiralled out of control was when Eddie got COVID. That kickstarted our * vein of form and is arguably still ongoing. There is obviously more to it than that.

But yes, the day which sticks in my brain for when * was truly going down the pan was when we didn't sign John McGinn and then we then signed Marian Shved. Which raises the concept of just essentially creating an SPFL IX rather than spending £5mil on Ajeti & Barkas etc. If we don't let the best SPFL players slip through the net then they will be good enough to beat other SPL teams - look at Turnbull.

Yes, you may end up with players like Greg Taylor, Declan Gallacher, Stephen O'Donnell etc who you may argue aren't 'Celtic class' but these players will be able to beat run of the mill SPL teams as well as a 'normal' Rangers, especially if we are taking all of their good players from them. And think of the good players that could be of use to Celtic, and have been over the years, that have come from the SPL. Christie, McGinn, Turnbull, Armstrong, even Dykes, fs. I genuinely think Lyndon Dykes could have had a positive impact for us this season. But we went and bought Ajeti for £5 mil and Klimala for £3.5 mil. And these players are cheap as * - Dykes was £1 mil and I know for a fact he would have contributed much more than Ajeti & Klimala combined. We have players coming from the academy to add to that as well. Its a * no brainer for me, especially considering the situation we are in now. We don't have the time or money to be buying expensive players who have a few screamers on YouTube and will need 8 months to settle in. I don't get why Lawwell just doesn't do that - it would guarantee success domestically for us. Its an easy job.

 

We need to chase off Lawwell and the rest of the board. I don't know how to do it, though. Or at least, do it legally.

 

When Rodgers * off up the motorway when we were in the hunt for the treble treble. Lennon was only supposed to be a stop gap, so you could argue that appointing him in the shower.

I’ve been checking BBC news since about 7am. The overhaul is still not upon us. Maybe they’ll wait till Livi gub us, just to put the cherry on top of the humiliation.

Dark days indeed

 

I can kind of see where @Mr Diggler is coming from, the fact that our ongoing problems pre-date Lennon being manager confirm that.

Deila and Mowbray's eras were a shambles, the end of Strachan's tenure was desperate as well.

The brilliance of the rat masked the institutional failures that we had but even that went sour when the rug was pulled from under him in the summer of 2018 with the McGinn shitshow.

Lennon has been atrocious this season but he was the pick of the 1 contingent factor in all the failed management regimes before him too.

We were always going to downgrade in quality after the rat but there was no reason to downgrade so drastically, particularly without any consideration as to what was out there. Whoever came in was always going to be up against it with the clowns we have as custodians at the top. Our model is literally decades behind Europe's most forward-thinking clubs.

 

Lennon should never have been appointed on a full time basis, a brave decision was needed in not appointing him.. It was a difficult one tho, he had just seen us over the line to secure a treble treble..

The games v them should have been a wakeup call as it was clear the tide had turned in spite us getting over the line. Even the LC win the next season, the most one sided Cup Final in years, crazy we won that one.

Some could see it sooner, but the fact we've limped on with Lenny still at the helm is an absolute disgrace and a disaster.. The season could have been saved.

Its gone now and we need to rip out the board and the management team, a good chunk of the squad, who need to take their share of the blame too..

 

Mate, you're bang on here with everything but the first two sentences.

It didn't require bravery to not appoint him, quite the opposite. It was a self-evidently terrible appointment and should have been seen as such.

It should have been the easiest thing to tell him, thanks you scraped over the line but the last manager set the bar and that's what we're aiming for.

He had no right to the job.

 

No not contradictory. What has happened this season has been a shambles and as manager the buck stops with Lennon but this is the culminaton of years of complacency from the boardroom down. Last season though we did play some really excellent stuff- I remember people even saying it was more exciting than the rat's last season. So what has happened this season for me was not inevitable. I can't believe it has come to this.

 

He had just secured the Treble Treble, it required bravery not to go with him, the board took the easy option or didn't look at any other options which is unforgivable and negligence..

Still, I and many were happy with the summer window nobody could have predicted how out of touch we would be at this stage...

It's easy to criticise that decision to appoint him permanently, when you look back on it and rightly so with hindsight but it's was a decision that was literally debatable at the time.

Keeping him in the job, fail after to fail until we find ourselves in the position we're in now is where the real disgrace lies, for me..

It has to be a turning point in how we do business, as when you speak about elite sport its a contradiction in terms for us at the moment.

It needs to be turned into a positive a chance to rebuild properly. Losing the 10 will be sore but limping over the line and burying our heads in the sand, could have been worse and set us back many more years.

 

It all went to * the day we let Jonny Hayes go.

 

The minute we had our first cases of covid in the team things just fell to pieces. It may have been a lot earlier than that with tactics becoming fragmented but the entire board didn’t cope with any of the virus stuff once it became a massive problem. Flying the team to Dubai when travel had been deemed essential only was the final nail in the coffin when it come to logical decisions.

A lack of quality signings has also been our downfall for the past few years.

 

Few people wanted Lennon to be appointed on a permanent basis. The fact that many people were deflated after winning the Treble Treble tells you everything that you need to know about the mood of the support at that time. The popular decision would have been to thank him, and move on.

 

I also dont think we would have been in the mess we are in if fans had been able to attend the games.

So covid has to be up there.

A better manager would have got more out of the current pool of players

Plus recruitment

Replacing gordon/foster with barkas
Replacing lustig with elhamed/frimpong
Replacing jozo with duffy
Replacing KT with taylor/boligoli
Replacing brown with soro/old brown
Replacing sinclair with mo
Replacing dembele with bayo/ajeti/kamala

How many of them have worked out