Six days ago, Stephen McGowan of The Herald had a significant managerial scoop. The appointment of Martin O’Neill and his length of contract were, it is now confirmed, accurately reported. Given McGowan’s track record on Celtic related news, this was taken to be gospel.

I wrote last week on the impressive global recruitment search which yielded the massively impressive shortlist of the man who was already in the building (as per Nicholson) the unemployed man who was untroubled by a spot of apartheid & genocide, and the novice club manager who had already reconfirmed his commitment to his nation.

Since I mentioned it in that blog it has been quoted back to me a number of times as folk arrive at a similar conclusion. It appears almighty Desmond (hallowed be his name) has found himself with retired football advisers, a rolodex of players written on parchment using quill and ink blot, a club now renowned for bad faith dealing with agents and players (as deals are agreed and then continually revised up the chain of interference and incompetence) and a personal reputation besmirched by his attack on a long time elite manager, intransigence and compulsive micro management.

The end result is that no global search took place, because Desmond the dominant wouldn’t have countenanced any appointment not made directly by him, but all the rabbits he used to pull out of his hat have died from old age, and the new generation of managers who aren’t desperate and have reputations to protect, view him with all the trust due a capricious elderly billionaire with a track record of not adequately supporting ‘his’ managers and briefing against them via his press proxies.

Failure to Launch

Having whittled this plethora of talent down by means of availability and acceptability, our lord and master finally settled on his septuagenarian peer. I have previously covered the pros and cons of appointing Martin. So, lets discuss what was (and wasn’t) said in an appointment announcement so slow, that not only had Celtic failed to control the narrative, or even react to the leak, but we’re already days into the rumours around the lowballing of his coaching team.

Given that we hadn’t heard from the club at all, although the McGowan story was deemed factual, there was endless speculation as to the delay in Martin’s announcement. Rumours emerged around the time of McGowan’s story about Maloney and Fotheringham being asked to take a significant haircut on salaries, despite being a double winning coaching team.

This seemed/seems like the most Celtic thing possible, and therefore the story was/is widely believed. Whether true or not, the fact that it was so easily believable is the outcome of Celtic’s behaviour around any sort of significant deal, whether it appears to be a no brainer or not. I have no doubt McKay was still furious about having to pay off Nancy and his team, which would have made him more susceptible than normal to unreasonable penny pinching.

Stating the Obvious

The club left themselves in a situation where the reaction to the official announcement of Martin’s appointment was a collective eye roll, followed by an exasperated ‘aye, ah know!’

‘This is the start of a busy summer’ says interim Chairman Brian Wilson. That’s very true Brian, so the best way to start it probably wasn’t to spend 5 months sitting on your collective hands, not seeking out a leader for the team, and meekly awaiting dispatches from decrepit daddy Desmond. Then to follow that by appointing Martin, having the information leak, not reacting to the leak, failing to announce the appointment and then having that delay interpreted (correctly or incorrectly) as an inability to get a deal done with two guys who couldn’t be more highly motivated to sign up.

To add fuel to the fire, there was no mention of the coaching team in this announcement. Given that Martin doesn’t coach, these are massively important appointments, both for the short and long term. Martin’s health may fail him, and here’s hoping that doesn’t happen, but what we’re also still in the dark about is the future direction of the club that’s just appointed one of the oldest managers in world football on a short-term contract.

As busy summers go, that’s not impressing as directionally assured, or fleet of foot. More like a blindfolded elephant in quicksand.

The club mentions “One of the most amazing climaxes in Scottish football history by securing his fourth and Celtic’s 43rd Scottish Cup victory.”

There’s no disputing that. What we want to know is whether any of these much mentioned ‘lessons’ have been learned to ensure such an ending is never required again,

Martin states, “we will strive again to bring our fans the success which that support deserves.” Unfortunately for Martin, the support believes it deserves a lot more success than the Desmond’s do. Brendan Rodgers made it clear that ‘maintenance’ is not a motivational mission unless you’re a money man.

Running to stand still is also no longer an option with a dialled in Hearts and a refinanced Rangers to compete with.

The Axis of Feeble

Michael Nicholson apparently contributed to this statement. I assume via the medium of interpretive mime.

“We have important challenges ahead and the immediate priority of everyone at the club is to ensure we are ready to tackle these with confidence and deliver success again for our supporters.”

And what does ‘success for our supporters ‘mean to you Michael? Is it failing to heed constant demonstrations about your incompetence and failures of leadership? Is it continuing to attack the paying fans? Is it continually blowing up agreed transfer deals by trying to sneakily revise them at the death? Is it the ongoing managed decline of the squad? Is it persisting with your undiluted deference to daddy Desmond, as you fail to meet your corporate governance obligations or manage upwards in any meaningful way at all?  

Is it parcelling out your responsibilities to McKay and Mazoyer until all that’s left is communicating with shareholders and stakeholders, something that you have consistently refused to do? Is it taking the guts of a million pounds a year of the fans money to do your best impression of Marcel Marceau?

We know it’s not success in Europe, so is it barely beating a club with a third of our financial resources or a recently defunct financial basket case with a bit of new money behind them?

Rather than being decent in the Champions League and, by default, dominant domestically, is success now scraping home domestic trophies against clubs who shouldn’t be able to see us for dust?

Bending the Knee

Daddy Desmond adds “The club will support Martin fully again across the close season to make sure we are well prepared to achieve domestic success and compete on the European stage.”

There’s a couple of words there doing all the heavy lifting. ‘Support Martin fully again’ has to be a joke, unless he’s referring to 2001. Certainly not the utter disgrace of the January transfer window. Of course, by ‘support’ he might mean that he and Ross will be breaking out the pom poms for a wee O’Neill cheer!

‘Compete on the European stage’ says the bold Dermot. But his offspring told us this was aspirational, and the Nicholson/McKay ‘axis of feeble’ confirmed that any European qualification was deemed as a success, despite the near impossibility of us failing to do so.

If Dermot and his minions do not mend their ways and support Martin with money, not just with meaningless words, Celtic may indeed be performing on a European stage at some level, but it could be equivalent to the local am-dram society putting on a play upstairs in the village pub.