Home truths need to be given house room

Published 17th Dec 2018

It must have been galling for the Celtic support to hear Steven Gerrard say Rangers had “zero killer instinct” on the day Rangers went back to the top of the Premiership table.

Gerrard ruthlessly exposed his side’s limitations for public perusal and spared no-one’s feelings in spite of leapfrogging Celtic and Kilmarnock with a lacklustre display against Hamilton Accies.

But Celtic were sub-zero from start to finish against Hibs at Easter Road as home truths tumbled out in front of the limited number of fans who were able to get inside the ground because of the home club’s inexplicable ticket selling policy.

Give the visiting club half a stand and leave the other half empty when it could have been sold out. Who thought up that one?

But I digress.

Celtic were forced to do without Leigh Griffiths, Kieran Tierney, Ryan Christie, Tom Rogic and Mikael Lustig for a variety of reasons.

The underbelly of Brendan Rodgers’ squad was therefore put up for inspection, and the end result was revealing.

The underbelly is soft and the list of deadwood at Celtic Park, in other words those who didn’t even make it into the squad for Sunday’s game, is growing at a rate which should result in wholesale departures in the January transfer window if deals can be done.

There is a a myth about Celtic’s strength in depth and Neil Lennon held it up to the light for all to see at the weekend.

Celtic were unprofessional in losing a goal before the first minute of the match had been played and played out the finale to the game with two wingers in the wide positions and another two wingers playing through the middle.

Where was Tore whatsisname from Rosenborg when Celtic needed him?

The number of players who are simply not good enough to play for Celtic was made evident by a Hibs side who could tell from the word go that they could smell blood and were ruthless in their dissection of a team struggling to come to terms with the system they were being asked to play.

The manager didn’t like being questioned on tactical approach, accusing the players of lacking “tactical discipline” instead of accepting that there might have been flaws in his system of using people out of position.

But the Celtic support will now surely start casting a critical eye over their team as the halfway stage of the season approaches, starting with Wednesday night’s home game against Motherwell.

The Europa League is simply a sideshow. It makes the club a few bob in revenue but RB Salzburg showed that Celtic have disco lights while still being murder on the dance floor when confronted by quality opposition.

A spell was broken when the Austrians came to town. The spell that was cast when Ryan Christie came on against Hearts at Murrayfield in the semi-final of the Betfred Cup and sparked a run of dazzling domestic form was broken when he was lost to injury.

Now Celtic have gone back to the idea the manager first thought of with Scott Brown and Olivier N’tcham in midfield. It was far from a resounding success at Easter Road.

The Celtic fans refuse to countenance the idea that somebody other than their team could win the league title. They assume Eight in a Row to be a formality and the road to Ten in a Row to be free of obstacles.

But fifteen points have now been dropped away from home this season, the last three of them against a Hibs side who were missing several automatic picks for Lennon.

That smacks of ropey defending at the same time as Celtic have somehow allowed themselves to end up with just one striker, a twenty year old who is showing signs of being burdened by expectation.

The amount of money spent on acquiring Odsonne Edouard showed a willingness to spend on the part of Celtic’s hierarchy. They will need to dig deep in next month’s transfer window as well or else run the risk of bringing themselves into conflict with the manager.

If Celtic should fail to win the title it would no doubt signal the end of the line for Rodgers on the grounds that he does not receive £2.5m per year, exclusive of bonuses, in wages while failing to dominate the domestic front.

Winning the title is the minimum requirement expected of him, but Celtic now find themselves being genuinely challenged for the main prize.

And Rodgers, previously critical of a lackadaisical approach to nailing down new players, will demand that he be given the tools to do his job properly.

The wage bill at Celtic Park is remarkably high, as high as the list of those who are blatantly surplus to requirements.

Nir Bitton, Marvin Compper, Scott Allan, Kundai Benyu and the rest will need to be the subject of delicate negotiation to get them off the payroll as soon as possible.

There is a need to create space for an influx of new faces who can renew energy.

If what happened at Easter Road on Sunday did not set off alarm bells then Celtic have turned a deaf ear to the fact that the they’re not as good as they think they are.