I have been immersed in work all week and as the days past doing a post-mortem on the game at Ibrox, last Sunday became less and less relevant as a result.
There really isn’t much to tell anyway. Celtic rolled in and may as well have had their slippers on and the cigars and brandy out. The match clearly meant far more to them than it did to us and they won the game quite comfortably 2-0 with Scott Bain being at fault for the first and more or less the whole team for the second.
Oliver Burke should have got us back into it late on but his woeful effort from close range after great play from Edouard just about summed up the wingers time at the club. Disappointing.
Mikey Johnstone was also thrown to the wolves once again just like he was back in December. I feel genuinely sorry for him as he was tasked with playing out of position and covering for Lustig’s lack of pace down the right side. He did a half decent job of shackling Ryan Keny but offensively did little to nothing.
Neil Lennon cut a frustrated figure after the game but truth be told this kind of listless and confused performance has been the norm under him by and large since his return it’s just our luck finally ran out and we were up against a team that could actually punish us for it.
Back in the day when the shoe was on the other foot and Rangers were winning all before them in the ’90s we quite often gubbed them in the final league game of the season when said match was at Celtic Park. In the grand scheme of things though it meant little as they either had or were about to wrap up the league as well and had already hoovered up most of the domestic trophies.
Examples are us winning 3-0 against them in late March 1991, and in other near season-ending ties in 1993 (2-1) and 1994 (3-0).
Even in more recent times, we beat the old them 2-1 at Celtic Park in 2010 when they were already champions. Indeed that was Neil Lennon’s first Old Firm game in charge.
At the time those were great wins as it gave momentary relief from what had otherwise been painfully inept campaigns with little to nothing else to shout about it.
Now it’s their time to celebrate a win which just like they were for us back in the day mean in the grand scheme of things absolutely nothing. The league table may look more competitive and even like there was a serious title challenge at one point. But they’ll still finish second and we’ll still be champions as well as on the verge of a historic Treble Treble.
All that being said the warning signs are there. They are galvanised now and have a genuine belief they can stop 9-in-a-row never mind 10. We have had our warning shot across the bow and have to pay heed to it otherwise we are literally sailing towards an iceberg and hoping it melts before we get there.
Personally, I don’t think Neil Lennon is the man to take us forward. He’s a downgrade from our previous manager without question and anyone denying that is either in denial or an insufferable sycophant. Downgrading is not what you do when on the brink of something truly monumental and most likely once in several generations.
Early signs from Lenny aren’t promising. Not only is the football by and large guff but he’s already talking about ‘building a team’ around our 34-year-old captain which shows complete short-termism. He also wants new contracts for the faded pair of Mikel Lustig and Emilio Izaguirre and has been linked with a move for the forgotten man of Sheffield Wednesday Gary Hooper. I mean why not go the whole hog and contact Charlie Mulgrew, Fraser Forster, Joe Ledley, big Samaras et al and get the band back together? That’s really how it feels.
Back in 1997, Walter Smith decided to stay loyal to the old guard of Ally McCoist, Andy Goram, Alan McLaren, Alec Clelland, Ian Durrant, Stuart McCall and Richard Gough. As a result, they lost the league and their only chance of making it ten in a row. Most of those players have all since acknowledged that.
We are now in a similar predicament. We have a squad full of faded veterans and dead wood and it’s clear to see that Neil Lennon isn’t the man to make the big decisions and pull the plaster so to speak when it comes to certain players.
Instead, we need someone with a fresh approach who can sweep the boards, reinvigorate the squad and get us back to playing high intensity, dominant football and once again put the men from Govan in their place.
It doesn’t matter what happens against a piss poor Hearts team in the final next weekend. Even if the unthinkable were to happen and we lost all it would do would confirm what we already know. The warning signs are already there. Lennon has had his dress rehearsal and it’s just not been good enough and we all know it. The fact we’re even debating it across social media so vigorously tells you that. It’s time for decisive action and change.
Who exactly depends on what ambition the board have? They showed it in the summer of 2016. With the tenth straight title so close you can almost touch it now would be a crazy time to not match or even exceed that. I hope they do the right thing. It might be tough but the hardest road to travel is usually the one that reaps the greatest req=wards.
....Always A Tim! 