Chickens coming home to roost for negligent Celtic
THE January transfer window was supposed to be Celtic’s get-out-of-jail card. An opportunity to spend the millions burning a hole in their bank account on three or four quality footballers and leave Rangers trailing in their wake.
In football, as in life, you reap what you sow. Armed with a chance to press home the financial advantage, they spent £3million on winger Nicolas Kuhn, signed an inexperienced loan striker who couldn’t get a game for Championship side Norwich, and failed to secure the quality left-back Brendan Rodgers wanted.
January was an act of corporate negligence even before a 1-1 draw in Aberdeen saw Scotland’s stuttering champions drop points for the sixth time this season. Eight points clear of Rangers when Michael Beale was sacked, the advantage is now gone. Bookmakers have installed the Ibrox side as new favourites to win the Premiership and their logic is sound.
While Philippe Clement has made his players better, Rodgers is finding it harder to draw blood from the stone.
Some supporters blame that on bad recruitment, others on Rodgers himself. Those who find it hard to forgive or forget his departure for Leicester City in February 2019 held reservations about taking him back in the first place. And results are doing nothing to win them over.
A banner raised by travelling fans at Pittodrie read ‘Celtic board — on your heads be it.’ And nothing summed up the poor decision-making of the recent window quite like Bojan Miovski’s 19th goal of the season.
Alexandro Bernabei, an unimpressive left-back, was a player Celtic failed to offload and replace last month. After he gave the ball away in the Aberdeen half, a long pass from Dante Polvara presented Miovski with the kind of chance he didn’t get in the first period when the home side failed to muster a single touch in the opposition penalty area.
In June, Celtic had £72million in the bank, and the reluctance to spend £6m of that cash on Aberdeen’s star striker felt like a false economy when Miovski turned a ropey Maik Nawrocki inside out and curled a brilliant finish past
Joe Hart for the opening goal. Celtic will point to the cash spent on Kuhn, the winger who claimed his first goal for the club after 63 minutes, as evidence of money well-spent. Another Celtic wide man who likes to cut inside and run into traffic, there’s nothing yet to suggest he’ll be the player to significantly improve the supply lines to Kyogo Furuhashi. Once the team’s fulcrum and talisman, the Japanese has now scored four goals in 19 games. And, on current form, Miovski might have fancied his chances of being Celtic’s main striker, never mind a back-up option. In the last 10 meetings of these sides, Celtic had won nine of the games by an aggregate of 29-6. On Saturday, a lack of clinical finishing during a dominant first half cost them another comfortable win.
Aberdeen were terrific during a second half when they should probably have won the game.
Wasteful with the ball during an inept 45 minutes, interim coach Peter Leven urged them to relax.
Miovski’s brilliant opening goal helped no end, sending Celtic into a tailspin.
Rodgers often likes to speak about maintaining control of games and, after going behind, his team didn’t have any. Nawrocki had to be removed from the fray after dodging a second yellow card.
The introduction of Kuhn and Adam Idah saw the two new Bhoys combine to draw Celtic level, Kuhn’s strike taking a wicked deflection off Nicky Devlin en route to goal.
Leven’s half-time words had helped Aberdeen finally come alive and ask serious questions of the champions, captain Graeme Shinnie blowing a glorious chance to score the winner when he struck Leighton Clarkson’s low centre too close to Hart.
The final minutes illustrated why Neil Warnock will fancy his chances of leading the Dons back to the top six. And the weakness of the hand Rodgers has to play with in the quest for a title.
Celtic finished the game with a back-up Norwich striker up front, Anthony Ralston playing left-back, Rocco Vata on the wing and a central defence of Stephen Welsh and Liam Scales.
With Daizen Maeda, Hyeon-gyu Oh, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Greg Taylor and Reo Hatate missing, the champions will have more options to call on. Eventually.
Among fans, however, there is a feeling of resignation now. The season is beginning to feel like the doomed quest for 10-in-a-row.
Failure to invest money on players with title-winning quality has seen points dropped against St Johnstone, Motherwell, Hearts, Kilmarnock, Aberdeen and Hibs. On Wednesday, they return to Easter Road, where Rodgers has never won as Celtic manager.
A Rangers win over Aberdeen by three goals tomorrow would send the Ibrox side top before the Hoops go to Edinburgh.
Whether the root cause is boardroom arrogance, complacency, parsimony or simply the impact of a sluggish January market, there’s at least one thing a deeply unhappy fanbase can agree on. The chickens are coming home to roost.
Dejected: Celtic players trudge off the pitch (main) after dropping points at Aberdeen thanks to a fine Miovski strike (left)