Celtic are living in a bubble... or is it an alternate universe?
WHATEVER you made of those lagers by the pool in Dubai or Boli Bolingoli’s big day out in Marbella, there is no accusing Celtic of not living in their own wee bubble right now. Theirs is a shielded environment in which reality is clearly becoming ever more of a foreign country. And, as the self-proclaimed masterminds of Scottish football’s war on Covid-19 have learned the hard way, foreign countries are something really best avoided at this moment in time.
Much like telling the truth about why it’s all gone pear-shaped at Parkhead. Or taking any real responsibility for the messiest disintegration in a public forum since that 100-foot Marshmallow Man exploded in a fountain of gloop all over New York City near the end of Ghostbusters.
Not even turning up at the training ground with a massive ‘Lennon Out’ banner — as the Green Brigade did on Friday — can pierce the outer layer of their protective cocoon.
Neil Lennon doesn’t do walking away. And his modern-day representation of Ally McCoist circa 2012 only adds to the feeling that the cyberswarm of jubilant Rangers fans taking to Twitter to proclaim this the beginning of the ‘Bhanter Years’ have a point.
Quite what Celtic’s board are doing to assuage concerns they are no more than a couple more bad decisions away from going full Sevco and resorting to hiding out in a gazebo on the pitch is anyone’s guess.
Last time Peter Lawwell put out a
video on club TV, looking
It’s more like the Addams Family than the Celtic Family right now
like he’d been up all night inhaling mustard gas, he had banners painting him as Comical Ali hung on those metal fences stationed outside Celtic Park — quickly becoming a Glasgow version of the Berlin Wall’s East Side Gallery, only more political.
He also had Lennon stamping all over the apology he had offered for sending the squad to the Middle East in the middle of a pandemic within days — the manager’s infamous press conference coming across as a hostage video in which the hostage has decided he prefers his own script, after all — and finished up handing in his notice.
Still, he is supposed to be spearheading a review of the management team’s ‘progress’ in turning a large gap at the top of the table into a completely unbridgeable one. You know, the review promised in December when ‘The Ten’ — remember that? — was still, just about, a thing.
Maybe it’s done and dusted and it’s been decided Lennon is the man. Maybe Lawwell is going to announce the results along with the outcome of August’s investigation into Leigh Griffiths allegedly breaching social distancing regulations with a lockdown house party.
Maybe the dossier has just been filed away in the same cabinet that contains the plans for that 2008 tour of Japan — a celebration of a summer of sporting integrity — that never quite got off the ground in the end.
It’s just that it might be nice if Lawwell actually told someone. Like those supporters he never tires of eulogising. Even when announcing he is stepping down as chief executive in June, he pointed out that ‘we need our fans with us’.
Yes, just as long as they keep ponying up the money and don’t ask any awkward questions about what they are getting for it.
It’s more like The Addams Family than the Celtic Family right now. And no lame gags comparing Uncle Fester to Scott Brown. Uncle Fester never elbowed anyone in the face in his life.
It did look like we might be getting somewhere after Celtic lost to St Mirren last weekend. Even if it was back to Square One. Lennon started the season throwing his players under the bus after going out of Europe to Ferencvaros and was back pushing them in front of the No 61 to Summerston again.
He was even willing to release some of those desperate to escape this time — with Olivier Ntcham disappearing like snow off a dyke to the less troubled surroundings of Marseille, where the training ground is in flames and the manager has gone because he would rather jam those little bones you find in ducks’ tongues inside his eyelids than put that epitome of Gallic nonchalance in his midfield.
Sure, Lennon still couldn’t admit the coaching staff may just have had the slightest something to do with the mess the place is in, too, but at least he did let rip a bit and concede he has never known it worse than this.
It hinted at a move back towards the actuality everyone else sees, if nothing else. Until Callum McGregor, captain for the day, was invited to sift through the rubble.
‘We’ve got so much learning to do,’ he ventured. ‘We’ve got a lot of young players, so the consistency is going to dip.’
Sorry? What? The starting line-up contained him, Bain, Ajer, Duffy, Bitton, Soro, Turnbull, Elyounoussi, Griffiths and Edouard. Celtic don’t have any young players. It’s part of their problem.
From there, it has been straight back into the Twilight Zone. Lennon returned to blaming empty grounds for a run of one win in six ahead of beating Kilmarnock in midweek and said he can’t understand why anyone would even ask if he is leaving.
He has also cited Covid and players sitting alone in the house as reasons for a squad paid £50million a year being unable to beat anyone outside the relegation zone.
It’ll be private unease about how happy British fish really are about their post-Brexit arrangements being used as an excuse next.
Still, it was good to hear in the same press call that Scott Bain — a guy whose erratic journey from first-choice goalie to third-choice and back again encapsulates everything about the campaign — has made himself a promise to rise above the beastliness of it all.
‘I am just going to come in every day with a smile on my face and work hard in training,’ he said. ‘Hopefully, that will stand me in good stead.’ This was two days after St Mirren.
It is the stuff of existing in a bubble, all right. Or on a completely different planet.