SENTINELCELTS

Morning, all.

It has been a truly awful two weeks for Celtic, and that’s despite the fact that we were without football at all for one of them. We saw our dreams of a cherished treble disappear at Ibrox. You’ll all remember those heady years when we took such things for granted, winning four in succession. We saw our European aspirations take a damn good thrashing as Ferencvaros came to town and hammered us. And finally, the icing on the cake, a meek surrender at home in the league to the foe malign, a performance which yielded a miserable one shot on target. 

Last week, while the game took itself to international pastures, saw the release of the latest accounts. Turnover fell off a cliff last season, and our record profits of £45m were converted to a £6m loss. 

Strangely, nobody stood up and took the blame for any of these events. Yeah sure, there was lip service paid to having to step up to the plate, having to accept responsibility. Yet we still saw the same end result, a rudderless leaderless headlong rush into making the same mistakes time and again. One player stood up and told us what we knew to be true, that there is a lack of proper coaching and direction for the players from our management team. 

He got crucified for it on most of the sites. Seems us Celtic supporters don’t like being told, even if by one of our own players, what most of us are saying amongst friends in the stands, the pub, or even on sites like this. 

Even worse was to come from our CEO and interim Chairman when they provided their statements in the accounts. While admitting to a tough year which saw us with three separate managers, four if we include Martin O’Neill twice, it was all’s well that ends well and all right on the night as far as they were concerned. Every decision made was justified by the final outcome-which meant that they had proof that every decision made was the right one. 

No mention of the precipitous drop in income, other than to say that they safeguard against such by having sufficient cash reserves. Barely a mention of the reasons for that drop, including the loss of Champions League riches caused by their ineptitude last summer. Nothing at all about the drop in merchandising income, brought about by a widespread boycott of the tat which routinely hits our inboxes almost monthly. And certainly no mention of why our cash reserves dropped by £11m when our post tax deficit was only around a third of that. 

Meanwhile, some of our supporters still hold blindly to the notion that all of our ills can be laid at the door of our former manager, whose only crime was to speak publicly about not getting the players he required at all, never mind at the time he wanted them. After all, how could they be signed when the CEO was hamstrung by an outdated signing and wages policy? I await with interest the target of the latest blame game which will be along shortly. I confidently expect the common denominators who have been in place throughout to be sheltered from the loud howls of disapproval by their unofficial fan club. 

Meanwhile, this club is in danger of slipping into irrelevance, a doom loop of its own making. And we will be told it is all the fault of those nasty fans with banners depicting the real culprits with a red line through their image. 

I think we on here are smart enough to know different. And to lay the blame where it belongs. 

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Above article by BMCUWP