Unfortunately, this is not the first time recently that the Celtic manager has faced the SMSM recently after a hefty, costly defeat in a cup competition. So, he’s left to front up to a group who would range from Celtic leaning to fervently anti Celtic.

It’s times like these that illustrate the madness of the fan media ban. They may offer tough questions, but those questions will always be driven by passion for the club and rooted in a desire to see Celtic succeed. Anyway, that’s an issue for another day.

Certainly, what I was looking for in this pre-match press conference was some acknowledgement that tactics and selection were major issues again on Sunday, and that there was a desire to address them immediately. Unfortunately, that’s not what we got.

I was very much hoping that the manager’s reported post-game comments about whether we beat ourselves would have been reflected on, and a different answer would have been reached.

What fills me with dread is the coaching team concluding, after the humiliation of LASK and the embarrassment of The Rangers, that what we need is to keep doing the same thing but just try harder. There is no doubt that mentality is important in any professional sport, but that’s most often tested when things have already gone wrong.

Celtic should have been a goal down within 4 minutes on Sunday, and the situation never really improved from that point. We were completely unable to gain any meaningful foothold in the game, and yet there was no reaction from the coaching team other than to make eventual like-for-like replacements. That’s 210 minutes of football at Ibrox where we have registered only one shot on target. A truly scandalous stat.

Rather than discuss once more that, even in our victories against relative minnows this season, the weaknesses that we saw exploited in our humbling exits from the Champions League and the League Cup were all too evident, what I really wanted to talk about with you was the lessons that must surely have been learned and the swift changes that were being implemented.

Lessons Ignored

Most unfortunately, there was little to no evidence of that from the manager. He spoke about rotation only in the context of tiredness and the recent run of games. He spoke about applying ourselves, rising to the occasion and ‘just’ trying to overcome the challenges set by European opposition.

Perhaps, being famous for his man-management skills, this is genuinely how he perceives the game. How do we improve? We try harder, work harder, put in a shift at the coal face, and that’s how we overcome.

Firstly, it would help if the team looked fit, assuming the idea is to graft our way to victory. Although they certainly don’t look fit enough to the untrained eye, there are also ex-players absolutely slating the fitness level of this squad, which is in itself deeply worrying.

Martin’s belief seems simplistic perhaps, but we can understand why he thinks that. He comes from an era where far more responsibility fell to the players. You would gee them up, send them out, and expect them to get it done. Sure, they’d be sent out in a particular formation, but by and large that was the extent of the manager’s tactical involvement.

The Old School

My Dad wasn’t a very successful manager. There were several reasons for this, but one of the main ones was his expectation that players would be at a level they were just never going to reach. He would give instructions they were simply incapable of carrying out to the standard he demanded, and he didn’t have top-level coaches to rely on, translating that into an effective game plan to suit his players.

Martin is also old school by default. As an acolyte of Clough, he has always relied on excellent coaches to take care of the granular detail. Martin ultimately carries the can, but there is no question that whoever is currently taking care of that granular detail is doing a terrible job.

We have no identifiable style of play. We look clueless in terms of what we’re trying to achieve as a team, other than to somehow get the ball to our better players and hope something happens. Defensively, our press is a shambles, and we’re as exposed as a solitary penguin being hunted by a family of polar bears. The captain himself echoed these sentiments as he spoke about a team of individuals.

Defence We Don’t Need

Martin got immediately defensive in this presser when questioned about tactics and selection, which is a terrible sign. No matter what may have worked in the past, you must be able to adapt. Whether the relevant past was 20 years ago, weeks ago, or during a game, the principle remains the same. The players we have been left with by this board are simply not capable of delivering the 4-3-3 as envisioned by the coaching team, without leaving us open to onslaught after onslaught.

However, the only real change the manager spoke of was in relation to Duran’s preferred position, and he spoke of devising over the next few months, a way to win football matches with our best players on the field. However, he previously spoke about two up front and being flexible to play in different ways.

There appears to be a serious disconnect between what the manager is saying and the reality of what’s happening. Where the internal resistance is coming from is a matter of conjecture. However, rather than flexibility, it’s the rigidity of the formation and selection, not to mention the lack of in-game changes, that’s leading to heavy defeats by only adequate sides.

The manager is talking about evolution. However, we already know this particular branch of the evolutionary tree is doomed in its current form. We need revolution. An immediate change in direction. Abandoning the fatal 4-3-3 that will see us badly beaten yet again, unless meaningful changes are made in how it’s deployed and who is selected to save us from any more embarrassment.

In the next two games, we have a chance to build a foundation in Europe and set a marker domestically. We cannot do so simply by trying harder.

Viva la revolución!