SENTINELCELTS

My partner in crime suggested a year gone past review on this obvious date, and it’s a challenge I gladly accepted. Not only is it a pleasure to share this blog with yourselves and it’s co-owner, but it was a real pleasure to follow and cover our beloved Glasgow Celtic throughout the entirety of 2024.

On the first day of ‘25 it’s hard to gauge what the full impact of the last year shall be. There’s no doubt levels were raised, and I mean right across the board. Future Tims may well look back and point out ‘24 as the year the modern Celtic began, akin to us modern Tims pointing at Fergus and ‘94.
2024 as a whole now comes across as a changing of the guard, a different mindset being established, new goals and targets being embraced. As benchmarks go, it’s gotta be up there.

Starting at the top, the boardroom adapted, supposedly a reaction to over celebration in an Ibrox boardroom years ago when the clubs real shotcaller decided on revenge for the lack of respect on the day plus sins of the past. Regardless if true or false, it’s a fact some of our representatives went on to help create FFP/FSR which helped lead into this period of sustained success. For myself, the past year was transformative in that it delivered harmony between football operations and the profit driven controlling PLC. I cannot recall major ranting against the board, and I type that with much pleasure. The board seemed to finally grasp the seemingly simple fact that the better the team the better the accounts, and much needed change transpired. Not only was the wage structure altered, but the player budget increased to the extent that the club broke their own transfer fee record not once but twice. A smart investor goes where the money is, and for Celtic it was the revamped Champions League.
But to get there you must win the league, and that takes us to the turn of last year and five prophetic words left ringing in our ears.
‘I’ll see you in May!’

With those words the gauntlet was properly thrown down, Celtic wanted the title and would fight for it. Didn’t they just!
Brendan had several battles on his hands at the time,,one with the then transfer committee, a couple in domestic football, and perhaps more importantly with a section of the fans who either didn’t appreciate his return and/or his style of football after the ‘death by attack’ Ange. Those five words were not just a warning to the Ibrox mob, they were also a blast at his detractors who were quickly silenced by what unfolded.

The opening 5 months of 2024 delivered the new Brodge-ball, viewed widely as progress on Ange-ball as it offered an explosive attack alongside some defensive solidity. The gaffer mostly leant on Ange signings, the new chaps disregarded, but had notably transformed Liam Scales into a genuine first team player. Many others improved like Daizen, Callum, James, but the icing on the cake last January was a certain striker. And a certain winger, but we wouldn’t discover that until later in the year. January delivered in a big way.

The following 4 months were a joy to behold as Brendan got the best out of the bunch in every sense, bar Kuhn but we later discovered the reason and it was not football related so the gaffer cannot be held responsible.

The relentless march towards the title, the double winning Cup Final, the swagger and universal acceptance that Brendan knew what he was doing afterall,,,the foreign tour, the dismissal of Lawell Jnr, all the above lead to a summer of anticipation on many fronts.
Will he walk again?
Who’s buying the players?
Who’s getting sold?
Can we compete in Europe?

Within weeks of lifting the doing the double, our best player had predictably joined the EPL for 25 million and the Bhoys were together again back on tour in far flung places against world famous opposition.
We beat them all, and a certain German winger started emerging as a true player.

The Champions League draw was kindly for once, and the transfer window slammed shut with most Tims delighted at the recruitment given big money was spent on good potential with two of them having already proven that the Hoops aren’t too heavy a burden to wear. As a new campaign gets underway a very adventurous 11 million pound young Belgian recruit felt like a true statement of intent and by mid September everything looked rosey at Parkhead.
We’d just dispatched the Hibs and The R2ngers, first game of the new Champions League arrives and it’s at home. We hit the Slovakians for 5, same for Falkirk, before doing St Johnstone for 6. Celtic headed to Germany with everybody confident we could hold our own these days.
Dortmund stuffed us, scoring 7 to our 1.

Logic dictates that lessons were learned on that day, subsequent ability to fend off a European opponent such as Brugge, Atalanta, Zagreb only reinforces that viewpoint, but the result in Germany was certainly the low point in what has been an excellent campaign overall given qualification to the knockouts is not only possible but probable from my viewpoint. We’ve improved our coefficient, established ourselves as no ‘gimme’, learnt our lessons and taken them onboard.

The final quarter of the year saw a Celtic side that whilst not in top gear either grinds out the win or goes unbeaten, qualities that have now infected this group and have been lacking since Martin’s formidable European finalists.

2024 saw Celtic play well, buy well, and to be honest behave well. I’m struggling to think of one negative, and I cannot recall typing that before.
As twelve months of being a Tim goes, it’s gotta be up there with the best.
Roll on ‘25.

By Mahe