Lenny blamed ref for defeat but he didn’t pay £2m for Duffy loan and £5M for Barkas
Season has been a series of bad bets by champions but there’s no need to gamble on new boss now
IF the question now is what next for Celtic then the answer is most probably more of the same.
A season which has been a succession of bad bets followed by increasingly desperate gambles bottomed out at Ibrox on Saturday when the decision to stick it all on red failed to pay off.
When Peter Lawwell chose to stick with Neil Lennon rather than twist in the face of an angry mob, the chief executive was effectively banking on his manager coming up with the goods in the New Year derby.
Even though Celtic made a game of it this time, once again they left the table with nothing.
Now Lawwell’s Hail Mary accumulator has crashed and burned it seems too late for him to do anything more substantive about it other than cross his fingers in the hope that Rangers might suddenly lose their form, their nerve or both now that they have been installed as 1/16 favourites to take this season’s title,
It’s more than just a long shot – it’s an a***hole winder from the halfway line – and given what went on at the weekend the chances are Allan McGregor will probably tip it around the post in any case.
It’s where Celtic find themselves right now nonetheless. Boxed in with nowhere else to turn.
Of course, Lawwell could decide to cut his losses on Lennon this week, when he conducts a review of the manager’s position, but ironically that looks less likely now than it did at the start of December when the banner years unfurled themselves in Celtic’s car park.
For starters, it would be an admission that Lawwell got it wrong by refusing to buckle under the pressure but a bruised ego is not the only thing likely to keep Lennon inside the building for the time being.
No, the truth of the matter is there might be no other choice.
Put it this way, Lawwell would not have been doing his job properly had he not at least looked around to assess what other options might have been available to him when Celtic’s Holy Grail season started to wobble after hitting the skids during the first Old Firm derby of the season back in October.
The likes of Gordon Strachan and Martin O’Neill could have been viewed then as emergency, short-term solutions but that moment has passed without either man seeming overly keen to be considered for it in any case.
If Lawwell believed there was no viable quick fix at that point, or no alternative better qualified to pull this campaign out of the fire than Lennon himself, then it’s highly unlikely that such an option has suddenly presented itself.
One possible alternative would be for Celtic to wash their hands of this entire car crash of a campaign.
Identify a new manager for the long haul and rush him into the position this month to begin the big rebuild ahead of next season but how does Lawwell sell that one to any potential candidate?
“How do you fancy inheriting a 19-point deficit and starting your career here as the man who probably doesn’t win The Ten?”
It’s hardly an attractive proposition and, in any case, nor can Lawwell afford to be seen to be running up the white flag already, even if common sense dictates that it’s probably the smart thing to do.
But then, that has been the story of Celtic’s season so far, one bad decision bumping them into the next one.
Even though Lennon left Ibrox on Saturday convinced that his players deserved a great deal more than a 1-0 defeat, it was the same old unresolved issues which ultimately undermined them.
It’s ironic that some fans are now calling for Celtic to bust the bank and bring Fraser Forster back during the January transfer window because the big Englishman might well be the cause of Lennon’s problems rather than the solution. When Forster unexpectedly backed out of putting pen to paper in the summer he punched a huge hole in Celtic’s planning.
That Lennon ended up with Vasilis Barkas – a goalkeeper who has not made a single save worthy of the name since the season began – represents another £5million gamble gone wrong.
Lennon, presumably acting against his better judgement, took another huge punt on the Greek last week when he threw Barkas back into the firing line against Dundee United and promised him the gloves at Ibrox.
That Barkas didn’t have a single shot to save and yet still managed to lose another goal sums this tragedy up.
Exactly what he was doing when the
ball ricocheted into his net off Callum McGregor’s shoulder is anyone’s guess.
It didn’t look anything like the goalkeeping that was going on at the opposite end of the pitch where the other McGregor was protecting his clean sheet as if his life depended upon it.
Also, Lennon bemoaned the decision of ref Bobby Madden to send off Nir Bitton for rugby tackling Alfredo Morelos and blamed the official for Celtic’s loss.
But it wasn’t Madden who paid £2m to get Shane Duffy on loan from Brighton before deciding to deploy a midfielder at centre-half instead.
That Duffy was on the bench for 64 minutes is just another example of Celtic throwing good money after bad since the summer.
That Madden didn’t also send the Irishman off for an ugly, dangerous scissor tackle on Ryan Kent 10 minutes later was the one big decision that the ref did get wrong.
No, the fact is, Celtic’s failure to recruit a solid No.1 and a capable centre-half came back to bite Lennon’s backside just when the manager appeared to be cracking the tactical code where facing his city rivals is concerned,
Rangers boss Steven Gerarrd, on the other hand, will know his team got away with one at the weekend largely because of the heroics of his veteran keeper.
Gerrard was wise enough to play the down this win and remind his players 19 points will quickly be whittled down to 10 if Celtic’s recovery extends into the new year.
Gerrard has worked too hard on this team to risk losing momentum now.
He’ll continue to play it safe while Celtic continue to take all the chances. When the fun stops stop?
The wounded champions don’t have that option.