How good was it to see Martin O’Neill back at Celtic Football Club? Wilfried Nancy seemed to be the wrong actor in the wrong movie, and although it’s never nice to see people losing their job, it had to be done for the greater good of Celtic FC. I think we all know that our playing squad is not as strong as it should be, and it will take probably at least two transfer window’s to get to where we want to be, but we cannot afford to wait to see if his idea would eventually work, this is Celtic Football Club.
The basic reason Nancy had to go was that he was adamant that we would get it right, well we didn’t get it right. I think we know that good players can play in any system, but if you don’t have the players that can play in your preferred system, then you have to change the system, it was blatantly obvious that the players were not comfortable in the 3-4-3 system, even our Mr Dependable and Captain Callum Mc Gregor looked lost, in fact I can’t think of one player who was enjoying our games. It’s really difficult to understand, because apart from Roma and Motherwell, we should have had all the other games won by half-time.
Looking at Saturday, the body language of all our players looked completely different, they all looked hungry for the game, and couldn’t wait to get started, so it was a welcome change from the previous eight games. In all honesty the last time we played at a high level was probably in Munich last season, almost a year ago, that has to change, and change as quickly as possible. We need to be on the front foot from kick-off, we need to play fast aggressive football, utilising the pace in the team, a slow build up only gives our opponents the opportunity to back off into a deep defensive line.
We now have four difficult away games in a row, I know one game is against Auchinleck Talbot, and we will be heavy favourites to win, but as you would have seen at the weekend Crystal Palace from the English premiership got beaten by Non-League side Macclesfield FC, so you can bet that Auchinleck on the plastic pitch will give it their all to try to cause an upset, we need to make sure if there is going to be an upset, then it won’t involve us. I’m pretty sure Martin and Shaun will be drilling that message home to the players at Lennoxtown today and tomorrow. Then it’s off to Falkirk, they are doing really well and will be another big challenge, especially with only around 700 Celtic supporters present. Finally, let’s hope that Saturday was the turning point in the season, let’s get back to cheering on the Famous Glasgow Celtic to victory. Glasgow’s still Green & White.
