SENTINELCELTS

Morning,all.

We play Dundee United at Tannadice on Sunday,five months since we played them up there in a somewhat strange match. (You can all relax,folks. This isn’t a match preview,I’ll leave that for MAHE tomorrow.) When I say strange,it isn’t every match where the away keeper makes an excellent double save at 0-0,gets a hefty kick on the head which necessitates lengthy treatment,watches the ball rebound twice off his woodwork and is called upon to make another couple of excellent saves. Yet gets the win bonus because his side won 9-0!

This,of course,came the day after Liverpool had handed out a similar drubbing to Bournemouth. You don’t often get a result like that,so to have two on the same weekend will be a bit of a first. Certainly at that level. (Probably since a 36-0 and 35-0 way back when.) In fact,it is the first time I’ve seen two Celtic players-Kyogo and Abada-score hat tricks,though at the back of my mind,I seem to recall Stevie Chalmers and Bobby Lennox scoring FIVE each against Hamilton. Anyway,both managers,Scott Parker and Jack Ross,were bulleted in short order. Possibly harsh,given their previous records. But that is the business they are in,there is little consideration given to someone’s past record. Though it is of paramount importance when they are being hired,go figure. 

The same weekend,Aberdeen fairly hammered Livingston 5-0,and that against a team who don’t usually end up on the wrong end of a drubbing. Yet,here we are,that five months later,and Jim Goodwin’s job is hanging by the most slender of threads. Little wonder,given that his side just got knocked out of the cup by sixth tier Darvel,who only recently gave up their Junior status. Lose against Hibs on Saturday,and it will almost certainly be curtains for him. 

But there is an added frisson to this match. The opposing manager also has his jaikit on a shoogly peg! Little wonder they are already terming it El Sackico! Lee Johnson took the job at the start of the season following the short tenure of Shaun Moloney,who was frankly a major disappointment in his first full managerial role. Johnson has a fairly decent record at Championship level down south,but has failed to transfer that to Leith. His chances of ever succeeding at that will be greatly reduced by losing Nesbit and Porteous to sides in that very division. 

I realise that it is no fun watching your team lose,especially against sides that are there for the taking. Aberdeen actually have a decent record of showing loyalty to their managers,and Goodwin may yet survive all this. Why he should want to is a mystery to me,but again that is the business they are in. Johnson though is likely to be toast. Since McLeish took the job in 1998,lasting almost four years before jumping ship to HMS Dignity,only Bobby Williamson and Neil Lennon have lasted more than two years,and that barely. The list includes the aforementioned Jack Ross,btw! 

Firing Johnson will doubtless lead to them being flooded with applications,but I struggle to see how anyone can turn that ship around,especially after losing two more of their top players. And the same goes at Aberdeen too,bearing in mind that they only hired Goodwin last year because he was probably the best young manager in the country. The gene pool for potential managers in Scotland is not particularly strong at the moment,that’s for sure. 

There is one candidate who springs to mind,even though he has only had one successful season at the level required,and that is former Dundee United boss Tam Courts. He left at the end of last season to join Hungarian side Honved. I’m not sure what went wrong there,but his United side performed really well under him. I might be tempted with a wee quid on that. 

Of course,this is not the first El Sackico this month. They had their very own version of it last weekend in London,with David Moyes and Frank Lampard both on the brink. The particularly strange thing here is that both were being tipped for the other’s job if both ended up sacked. Again,go figure. As it was,Lampard was bombed out-and it must have been a blessed relief! That Sam Allardyce is being widely quoted in the running as replacement tells you all you need to know. He might get it too,if Marcelos Bielsa knocks it back. Bielsa is no fool,he has already said that the players are too slow for his style. I’d suggest too that too many of them are neither committed enough nor good enough to be playing for a side like that. I’d love Bielsa to take it,just to see their reaction to Murderball!

And yet,and yet… Clubs change their managers hoping for major improvement. It happens often enough that there must be statistics somewhere that prove that it works. Fifteen managers-plus caretakers!-in just over two decades at Hibs suggests otherwise. Seven managers in as many years at Everton should be QED. Yet,we know from experience as Celtic supporters that it DOES work,and to hell with the statistics that say otherwise. 

You never know,it might just be that certain managers fit certain places. It might be that there are other forces at work,like the players not being good enough or uncommitted.

It might even be that the board themselves are the source of the problem,perish the thought. 

It’s a funny thing,that. I’ve seen plenty of crowds lashing the manager,the players,the board. Often enough,the manager will pay attention and drop certain players,or the board will pay attention and sack the manager. 

I’ve yet to see the board of any club sack themselves due to the state of the football club they control. But when a club is consistently screwing up,manager after manager and season after season,maybe it is about time a few of them did. 

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Above article by BMCUWP