Hugh Keevins has warned that Celtic's board must look in the mirror if the club becomes a soft touch at home, arguing that the absence of Hyun-jun Yang is nothing compared to the lack of defensive reinforcements.
O'Neill's reaction to St Johnstone display
Writing in his latest column, Keevins reflected on Martin O'Neill's first radio interview after Celtic's midweek display against St Johnstone, describing it as a textbook example of unflappable meeting unfathomable. O'Neill said: "I'm not sure what to make of it, really."
Keevins offered his own assessment, calling the performance "turgid, unimaginative, defensively inept and offensively blunt." He noted O'Neill later described the display as "laborious," a managerial euphemism for being so boring you'd put the crowd to sleep.
Yang's absence and recruitment concerns
If Celtic play as they did at McDiarmid Park against Rangers in the League Cup today, Ferencvaros on Thursday, and Rangers again in the league next Sunday, it will be embarrassing and costly on three fronts. Keevins wished Yang luck at the Asian Games, where he will represent South Korea, and hoped his club career would not be curtailed by national service.
Keevins dismissed suggestions that Yang's absence is a major impediment, saying the winger is much improved but that his departure is not comparable to losing Henrik Larsson. He pointed out that O'Neill has spent in excess of £30million on new arrivals since the end of last season, and if Yang's loss is the biggest blow, questions must be asked about the potency of Celtic's recruitment.
Defensive frailties and board accountability
The most serious concern, Keevins argued, is the lack of defensive reinforcements for a "patently unreliable back-four" ahead of two successive games against Rangers and a Europa League tie against Ferencvaros in between. After the trauma of LASK and the Champions League qualifier defeat in Austria, Europe may not be uppermost in supporters' minds, but Keevins warned that the day Celtic become a soft touch at home is the day the excrement hits the ventilating machine for the club's hierarchy.
Dermot Desmond and the board are perpetually blamed for six consecutive failures to make the Champions League proper, but domestic domination acts like cosmetic surgery on the face of the club. Fans tolerate European inadequacy so long as they can appreciate localised bragging rights.
Over the last 15 months, Celtic have lost a Scottish Cup Final to Aberdeen, who sacked manager Jimmy Thelin thereafter, then lost a Premier Sports Cup final to St Mirren six months later under Wilfried Nancy. Going out of the same competition today, two steps removed from the final, would make for a lot of cup defeats in a short space of time for the richest club in the country. Having no fans inside their rivals' ground is not as bad as having no coordinated strategy, or no Yang.
