Well it’s done.
The season of our dreams became the season of nightmares but at least, it’s now put to bed.
And with it, the John Kennedy experiment too.
Any lingering fantasies that the departing Peter Lawwell had about once again going for the ‘ready made’ cheap option have been well and truly flummoxed by big John’s total failure to inspire anything resembling an upturn in fortunes.
Indeed if anything it’s gotten worse.
This past week saw Celtic finish up the campaign with a 4-0 hammering of St.Johnstone followed by a damp squib 0-0 draw with Hibs at Easter Road.
The Perth Saints have had an incredible campaign which has seen them finish fifth in the league, secure silverware via the League Cup and go onto reach a second final where they will meet Hibs at the weekend and could secure a historic double.
But coming only days after they secured their place in the Scottish Cup final via 2-1 Hampden victory over St.Mirren and with a weakened first team, they were easy pickings for Celtic last Wednesday evening.
David Turnbull opened the scoring on 23 mins with a low drive from the edge of the box after a quick short pass from Ryan Christie from a free-kick.
Then 60 seconds later Scott Brown – making his last appearance at Celtic Park – delivered a wonderful long-range pass to Edouard who controlled the ball fabulously first time taking it through the legs of Shaun Rooney before dinking it sublimely over Zdenek Zlamal in the Perth sides goals.
Vasilas Barkas – our much-maligned goalkeeper – then did the unthinkable and produced an actual save from an attempted lob from Chris Kane before the half was finished.
In the second half, there were plenty of opportunities to make it a resounding thumping but eventually Kris Ajer on 79 mins and then the diminutive Karamoko Dembele on 85 mins added the finishing touches with the third and fourth goals.
The Norwegian’s a was a deflected effort from inside the box and sub Dembele’s was a nice finish across the keeper after racing down the left flank.
Added to the 4-0 scoreline young Adam Montgomery made his debut at left-back and had a fine game before being substituted for Greg Taylor on 63 mins.
Three days later we finished up the season with a 0-0 draw at Easter Road in what was the kind of end of season meaningless encounter that usually ends these ways.
The first half saw a lively Elyounoussi spurn a few decent chances and Celtic generally dominate without actually putting the ball in the net – a common theme this season -whilst in the second half you could write the highlights on the back of a matchbox.
Hibs had already secured third spot via a midweek 1-0 win over fourth-placed Aberdeen and are focused on this coming Saturday’s Scottish Cup final against St.Johnstone.
By the time the whistle had blown for full time, most people had probably already switched off.
With that so brings down the curtain on a quite frankly awful season where nothing went right.
Ten in a row was the goal and we never even came close to achieving it in the end finishing on a measly 77 points which is a mammoth 25 points behind first-placed Rangers.
It’s three points less than what we achieved last season and that campaign was ended eight games early due to Covid.
And it’s our lowest points total since the disastrous 1999/2000 tenure of Barnes & Dalglish though we did actually win the League Cup that year.
With no silverware, this term it comes after twelve consecutive domestic trophies and 20 trophies in the previous ten seasons for our first trophyless campaign since Tony Mowbray darkened the dugout back in his 2009/10 tenure.
After being on cloud nine for the best part of a decade it’s back down to earth with a bump and then some.
So far manager Neil Lennon, CEO Peter Lawwell and head of recruitment Nick Hammond have all walked – or are in the process of doing so – with new Chief executive Dominic McKay having arrived earlier than his initially agreed July start and rumours continue to abound that Eddie Howe is a shoo-in for the manager’s post.
On the pitch, the clearing of the decks has also begun in earnest with Jeremie Frimpong and Hatem Elhamed being sold in January to Bayer Leverkusen and Hapoel Be’er Sheva respectively and Patryk Klimala departing for New York Red Bulls last month.
Captain Scott Brown is off to Aberdeen in a player/coaching capacity having already signed a pre-contract and loanees Shane Duffy, Diego Laxalt, Jonjo Kenny and Mohamed Elyounoussi are all heading back to their parent clubs with only the last one having any chance of being pursued on a permanent basis.
Safe to say that Odsonne Edouard, Kris Ajer and Ryan Christie will all likely be wearing different jerseys next season whilst Nir Bitton, Tony Ralston and Olivier Ntcham are also favourites for the exit door.
Returning loan players Jack Hendry, Marian Shved, Boli Bolingoli and Vakoun Issouf Bayo would appear to have no future at Celtic Park either.
I mean with a new manager coming in added to the nature of the dreadful campaign he’s taking over from no player is safe and the likes of Scott Bain, Vasilas Barkas, Conor Hazard, Leigh Griffiths and Albian Ajeti I’d imagine must also be wondering about their futures.
There weren’t really any success stories this year outside of David Turnbull who proved he has definitely recovered from a potentially career-ending injury that scuppered his initial move to the club and has always left lingering doubts.
He’s a fine player and it’s a no brainer that we should be building our new team around him.
Getting the likes of Jullien and Forrest back to full fitness will also be essential for the new manager with both effectively posted missing all season due to injury.
The goalkeeping situation must also be addressed with none of the current options in any way good enough and upfront even though Edouard is top class and still scored 22 goals this past season despite looking well off it it’s obvious his heart isn’t in it and with only a year remaining on his contract he needs to be sold now.
Ajeti either needs to be given a good kick up the backside or punted and Leigh Griffiths needs to finally man up and exploit his full potential. The problem with Griffiths is that if he leaves it’s likely he’ll go to another club in Scotland and if so it’s almost a certainty he’ll come back to haunt us.
As for John Kennedy there’s little doubt that the powers that be had fantasised about him being the answer but the reality is his record of four wins, four draws and two losses in his ten games in charge combined with his inability to introduce anything approaching brave selection and formation choices have pretty much consigned his short lived tenure to the dustbin of history.
Kennedy never looked comfortable in the big chair and I seriously doubt he ever actually wanted the role on a permanent basis. His results have made that a moot point in any case.
I don’t envy who’s coming in to clean up this mess but whoever is need to be brought in soon and to get our full support.
It’s a huge task and one that only gets harder the longer it’s left.
With the transfer window now days from opening up again the club have to act now.
....Always A Tim! 