What Cost Us The SPL Title...........

All of the above!!!

But in order:

1. Mowbray
2. The Players
3. Ref's
4. Other reasons

 

Players need guidance and there was no-one there to lead them so the management.

 

the window. We sold half the spine of our side in that window. I believe that if that window had not existed we would have gone to the wire with Rangers. I thought Mogga had stumbled on a really decent combination in the 6 weeks pre-window (Boruc-Hinkel-Fox-Caldwell-Mick-NGuemo-Crosas-Robson-Aidan-Skippy/Sammy-Fortune). They were far better than Rangers. Post window we were far poorer and even under Lenny we did not look nearly as good as we did in the 6 weeks before the window. Not sure how much was Mogga and how much was Lawells fault but I think it was 50-50

 

this *

 

bit of respect mate, he tried his best . he is an honest man who wanted to take us to the top and unfortunatly didnt manage it

 

Without a shadow of a doubt it came down to some very very bad management decisions, some bad purchases, bad sales and poor tactics. I have selected Mowbray, but I think the finger should be pointed and his recruiters. signing a relegated manager had doom written all over it from the start in my eyes!

 

1. Tony - Bad tactics, bad signings, bad team selections, possibly lost the dressing room. Unlucky with injuries though.
2. Players - not motivated, no direction, no-one to lead them and a * poor attitude.
3. The SFA and their assistants ie refs etc. As someone who has even, one occasion many years ago, come to blows with another Celtic supporter because I support Scotland which he took great exception to, I have to say this [last] season was a real shocker!
It's futile to try and complain about a goal here, offside there, a penalty somewhere else and sending offs elswhere. They will always be able to justify it. Some referees and linesmen DO favour Rangers at the expense of every other club in Scotland which Celtic bears the brunt of more than any. IT'S A FACT OF LIFE! Not a belief. A touchable, proveable, readable, researchable, checkable and recheckable fact of life!

I am Scottish but even I am considering supporting Ireland at football now

 

I agree with those sentiments. He was not only an idealist but he also had a board who wanted to get every penny in through sales possible selling off good players when we were trailing. He was also seriously unlucky. However noone could have helped the team survive that crazy window IMO. You do not gut a team that has just got into its rhythm and totally outplayed Rangers at a time when we were still trailing. We should have sold noone other than total fringe guys like Flood, should have still brought in a couple of players. If we had done that we would have at least made it very very close and IMO would have won it.

 

Agreed, I liked him much better as a player. I feel bad for him that his reputation at Paradise has been tarnished by his management record... I'm sure he wishes he could undo it all. People act like he * everything up on purpose.

 

Never give up your nationality. Do that and the huns win. Ever Scottish Celtic supporter who does that is just feeding the huns view of us as 2nd class Scots and turncoats. Never mistake a dodgy bunch of association pen pushers for your country. In sane peoples minds the team represented the land and all its history not a few old bitter pen pushers in dusty offices. As well as keeping the Celtic faith keep the faith for Scotland too.

 

Exactly, he gave his all and unfortunately it wasn't good enough. He will still be well thought of around here.

 

the exact same thing i said about not wanting lennon to get the job.but he has now.just hope we don't have to go through the same with him

 

Thanks mate, I couldn't do that, but The SFA do make it very hard to support our national football team at times. It does give me a bit of a dilema, A Scottish Nationalist who hates the people who run our national game

 

I know this is a bit off topic but its not really wrong to support your country, and wish other countries well. I am a dual citizen, and I give all my support to the USA. But I also wish Ireland well at the same time, even have a few Ireland tops.. Hey, I even enjoy watching Scotland play on occasion, just to see some of the Celts in action (although very few right now). But this I guess belongs in world football, not here.

Back to why we lost the league....

 

Dont worry you are in good company. There are a lot of paradoxes and inconsistencies at Celtic such as thousands of people who slag off the union evert week but never vote for the only Scottish party of any size who are anti-union and vote for a unionist party (Labour) instead. Oh well as Oscar Wilde once said 'consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative'.

That is exactly what I wish everyone did. Anyway better get back ontopic

 

On topic guys

 

id say mowbray since lennon got the same team yet done much better

 

Ha ha, good point well put mate, but yeah, let's not get off topic.

Keep the faith

 

It was the manager's fault.

Lenny showed what can be done with that group of players in 8 games. Mowbray couldn't do so in 3 quarters of a season.

Poor tactics, poor substitutions and a surprising lack of enthusiasm from the side of the pitch.

 

I mentioned earlier on another post that it was the refs fault initially.

Once the refs had taken it beyond the team's reach, the last five or six games under Mogga were very poor.

But to say Mogga was to blame is riduculous when you consider;

We ran Rangers ragged in the first two OF games. We should have had three penalties at Ibrox and at the New Year game Lafferty should have walked and Fortune's goal should have stood.

There's 5 points we would have added, plus Rangers would have lost 4 points. That's a 9 point swing in just those two games. An independent view of this came from Jim Gannon then Motherwell Boss when he commented "Dallas had to defend the referee because the result of the game might have been different if he'd got his decisions correct at Ibrox.
Celtic might look back on that result at the end of the season and decide that Ibrox in October is when they lost the league championship."

Then there's Motherwell's disallowed goal in the last minute that would have seen Rangers drop another point. A shocking decision when you consider Craigan was 3 yards onside.

St Mirren being denied a penalty and Weir being allowed to remain on the park at Ibrox that would have made it 2-0 and Rangers down to 10 men. Would Rangers have secured 3pts from that position? Causing Gus McPherson to say "We watch games, we go to games and we see clips on the BBC and we see a different set of rules getting applied. None more so than when we're coming here to Ibrox"

Same thing when they played Hamilton at Ibrox. Rangers win 1-0 but Hamilton have a legit goal disallowed in the last ten minutes. Causing Hamilton player Alex Neil to say “You don’t really expect any favours when you come to places like Ibrox. Rangers doing just enough to win, with a dubious officiating call thrown in..."

Then there's our games. Samaras scores v Utd at CP in the last minutes and it gets ruled wrongly offside - that counts and it's 3 points not 1. In the same game we get denied a penalty causing Craig Levien to joke "Darren Dods should have held it"

Falkirk away was another case of injustice - Samaras again getting a last minute goal chopped off. A good legitimate goal that would have meant 3 points instead of one.

Hibs at Celtic Park was a game we were all over Hibs, last minute Ki gets fouled at the edge of the Hibs box, the ref waves play on, Hibs break up the park and score. We lose another point.

The games we played Falkirk and Hibs at home and both Yogi Hughes and Eddie May said we should have had penalties. Had they been given - its a maximum 6pts not just 2.

Then there's the game at Ibrox when Scott Brown was incorrectly sent off - Rangers win in the dying seconds after having a strong second half - but would a full strength Celtic have held on for a point? Also Bougherra, Lafferty and Papac should have been sent off in that game for some shocking challenges - they all remained on the park, had they walked I'd have fancied Celtic to win. That could have been a point swing of 3 points had we drawn or 6 had we won.

Note all those games were under Mowbray when we were still in the race. Once the refs broke our spirit, the players and Mowbray chucked it.

Had refs called those decisions correct - we would of course been full of confidence and would have been champions.

So it's 80% refs, 10% players and 10% Mowbray.

Mowbray's problem was he let the refs/sfa and opposing managers away with too much, he played the big humble honey monster and people walked all over him.

I can't see that happening with Lennon and his team.

As for Mowbray his flaws were;

1. He never knew his strongest eleven

2. He was trying to be a purist and play the beautiful game - not easy to do when the players are getting kicked lumps out of on pitches fit for pigswill.

3. His signings never truly settled into things for one reason or another - injury, form, game time, formations etc.

4. He was pretty unlucky in many games - ie. Keanes debut v Killie - we battered them that night and Killie scored with their only chance.

5. He never fought the corner enough and defended his players, the club etc...he tried to be too much the nice guy when he should have tore into the sfa, the media and other managers. Instead of passively looking and saying "We'll just take it on the chin..."

6. He experimented too much with Celtic - at Celtic you can't afford to do that, we need to win every game.

7. He kept talking about the long term plan, the big picture etc, when in football it's all about the here and now...and delivering in the present not promising greatness in the far flung future.

Ultimately the board should have found these flaws in the interview process. But it's history now. Let's get behind Lenny and win back that title despite the refs/the sfa and ra rangers rabble.