It's not going according to plan for Celtic

Apparently it was Confucius who once said “a picture is worth a thousand words”. The picture adorning every Scottish back page of Neil Lennon sitting on a coolbox, shoulders slumped, head in hands, was certainly worth plenty of words, to the point that reading the match report of Celtic’s thumping by Braga was almost unnecessary. The Northern Irishman at least managed to avoid a defeat as heavy and humiliating as Gordon Strachan’s managerial debut against Artmedia Bratislava in 2005, but an overturning of the first leg deficit appears more about as likely as Stephen Hawking beating Usain Bolt over 100 metres – unless, of course, you strapped an afterburner to his chair, which is an intriguing thought. Anyway, I digress…

Strachan, of course, managed to bounce back from his opening match catastrophe to win the title that season. However, he had inherited the remnants of Martin O’Neill’s outstanding side, with John Hartson and Stiliyan Petrov giving him extremely good mileage. Astute signings such as Artur Boruc and Shunsuke Nakamura didn’t exactly do any harm, either. Lennon, in contrast, is stuck with the leftovers from the dog’s dinner which Tony Mowbray left behind. Scott Brown and Shaun Maloney aside (and even then the jury is out on whether they can return to their excellent form from a couple of seasons back), it appears to be a motley crew consisting of those who have failed to show any consistency – step forward Georgios Samaras, Glenn Loovens and Marc Crosas – and the numerous Mowbray purchases who have, technically, been consistent – as they have been consistently mediocre (Marc-Antoine Fortune, Ki Sung-Yong, Morten Rasmussen). Will Joe Ledley and Efrain Juarez be as good for Lennon as Nakamura and Boruc were for Strachan? Lennon badly needs them to be, especially since Aiden McGeady appears destined for the exit (surely not for Russian football though, as he would pick up too many injuries from diving on the plastic pitches), and so does the rather underrated Andreas Hinkel.

Considering Rangers have haemorrhaged players without, so far, having brought in a single new face, Celtic should surely be in a position where they are considered at least the equals of their rivals coming into the new campaign. The fact that there is still severe doubt whether the Hoops are any better than they were three months ago is a pretty damning indictment of the state of affairs at Celtic Park. And if things don’t go as they are meant to, it will be interesting to see how long folk-hero status keeps the Celtic support from criticizing him.

L.