KEITH JACKSON
ABOVE the angry din of the car park there are familiar echoes from a not-toodistant past.
It wasn’t all that long ago someone else clung on to the same old sound bite when confronted with the beginning of an inevitably messy end to life in the Old Firm’s fast lane.
The more Mark Warburton was asked the question, the more it seemed to irritate him. And the less his answer washed with those it was meant to appease.
“What’s plan B? It’s doing plan A better.”
And this stubborn, head-in-thesand- and- hope- for- the- best approach appears to have been adopted by Celtic’s board now the tables have been turned and the balance of power is emptying itself from one side of Glasgow to the other.
When the nine- in- a- row champions announced on Monday night Neil Lennon will be given the next seven games to pull his feet out of the fire, it was also an admission there is nowhere else for the club to turn now the quest for a 10th straight title is in serious danger of going up in smoke.
Chief executive Peter Lawwell may be many things – and the hate mob gathering outside the crash barriers at Parkhead seem determined to demonise him for allowing the Rangers banter years to become Celtic’s banner years.
But despite what they may accuse him of, he is far from being a naive operator or a man who is frightened of making a bold decision.
In fact, that he has opted to stand full square behind his manager at this moment of meltdown is in itself a ballsy move – even if it’s also one indicative of a man who has run clean out of options.
If Lawwell believed he could rush in a quick fix then he would have done so before now. If he believed an old ally such as Gordon Strachan or Martin O’Neill might be inclined to hurry back to Celtic’s rescue then those calls would have been already made. Or if he thought Celtic’s fortunes might improve by telling Lennon to take a walk and promoting John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan to the front line then he’d have done that too.
Even if it would smack of the makeshift Graeme Murty option, which Rangers triggered after Warburton had lost his loaf.
Instead, Lawwell has been left with no viable alternative but to hitch his wagon to Lennon’s last stand and hope that
both he and the manager can somehow get through this month safely to the other side.
If Lennon goes down in flames then Lawwell’s credibility too will be burned beyond all recognition.
He may have overseen this entire decade of dominance and plotted Celtic’s path with immaculate planning but he will not be forgiven should this last big gamble fail to deliver. And that’s exactly what it is.
A desperate punt which, should it not pay out, will be lampooned as an act borne of sheer delusion.
No, Lawwell wouldn’t be lumping it all on red right now if he felt he had the option of a safer bet.
That he is left to cross his fingers and toes while praying for a better version of plan A is evidence he too has lost control of this 10-in-a-row juggernaut at the worst moment.
He can do no more now than pull that face mask up over his eyes and hope for the best.
The strategy – while anchored to wishful thinking – is straightforward.
Get Lille out of the way tomorrow night and wash their hands of a Europa League campaign that has caused Celtic nothing but trouble.
Then hunker down for the weekend visit of Kilmarnock and wait for Lennon to finally get a grip of a group of players who have been grossly underperforming ever since this season got up and running behind closed doors.
And there’s where the first fundamental flaw can be found.
Lennon has lost all trust in his group. And, crucially, they appear to have lost any lingering desire to win it back.
Rightly or wrongly, the manager has already convinced himself a significant number of these players no longer wish to remain in Glasgow.
When they were rolled over by Ferencvaros in the Champions League qualifiers, Lennon went public with these suspicions and also insisted Celtic would be better off without them.
That those players remain among his camp, having been thrown under Lennon’s wheels, has done little to help matters. That they can’t even climb on to their owown team bus without a police escort to make it safely through the car park will have done even less.
If some of these players, for example Odsonne Edouard, Olivier Ntcham and Kristoffer Ajer, already believed they were being held here against their will, what will their egos be telling them now?
If others, such as Leigh Griffiths and Albian Ajeti, are not deemed fit enough for purpose almost five months into the season, then what does that say about their attitudes?
And what, for that matter, does it say about Lennon’s methods on the training ground? If his own players are not fit enough to earn their wages then isn’t the manager at least partly to blame for that?
Lennon may well believe that no other manager could get any more from such a demotivated, dispirited bunch. He can derive comfort from the belief it’s not Neil Lennon they don’t want to play for, it’s Celtic.
And if that is really the case then, yes, this is already a hopeless task. It should not be, though.
All these players are required to do between now and the end of this month is rattle off four consecutive top-flight wins over Kilmarnock, Ross County, Hamilton and Dundee United, while also beating a Championship club in Hearts in last season’s left-over Scottish Cup Final to complete a fourth successive domestic clean sweep.
Given the enormous wages still being dumped into their bank accounts, surely professional pride alone dictates they owe it both to their manager and their club to muster this run of victories and attempt to build momentum ahead of their next meeting with Rangers on January 2.
That’s what doing plan A better looks like. And it’s why Lawwell clings to the hope the situation might be salvageable with Lennon still at the wheel – even though the wreckage piling up in Celtic’s rearview mirror suggests otherwise.
The biggest car crash of the lot is most probably yet to come.