What are Celtic like? Other, that is, than an ongoing comedy sketch where the People’s Revolutionary Front of Parkhead gang up against anyone who has so much as listened to techno records from Tel Aviv and keep a 74-year-old OAP, who told all and sundry last season that the club needed someone younger, as manager.
It was crazy that Martin O’Neill, six years out of the game and happy padding around the King’s Road and popping up on talkSPORT, came back not once but twice as head coach last season.
That he’s now back in situ on a permanent basis after it became clear appointing Robbie Keane, with his heinous history of having taken a job in Israel once, would have been a step too far at a club that remains close to eating itself just says so much about where Celtic are.
Stuck in neutral with the loony left of their support trying to grab the wheel. Honestly, you’d think it’s all a deliberate ploy just to keep the Scottish Premiership competitive.
Celtic were there for the taking last term. The team was malfunctioning and now needs completely torn up. There’s no director of football in place yet and precious little information about a new recruitment set-up.
Mind you, there’s precious little information about anything. All that talk from interim chairman Brian Wilson about improving communication and modernising has still to transform into something tangible. Hopes of widespread change seem miles off.
Martin O’Neill is back for more fun next year despite saying the club needed a younger man
Look, O’Neill did superbly well to get the team over the line last term. It just felt in May, though, that it was time for him to bow out on a high.
Standing beside him in the Main Stand after that final-day madness with Hearts, he looked drawn and knackered.
Now, he has an entire club to help rebuild. Heaven knows if he and Shaun Maloney are expected, again, as they were in January, to spend their spare time on the phone trying to cobble together a load of underwhelming signings who will barely play.
What does look certain is that supporter anger at the board will continue unabated. Dermot Desmond ain’t going anywhere.
The Keane fiasco, though, just adds to the toxic mix.
First up, this ultra-political stuff — along with pitch invasions and general disorder the club seems unable to tackle effectively — is becoming silly and is going to damage the brand if it isn’t challenged.
Secondly, couldn’t the board see that opposition to Keane because of his time at Maccabi Tel Aviv might emerge as an issue and have other candidates in the mix? What have they been doing?
As it is, the temporary truce that took Celtic to the league and cup is over and it looks like nothing has moved on.
That should give Rangers hope, but chairman Andrew Cavenagh is sticking with Danny Rohl and that looks like putting them behind the eight-ball from the off. As for Hearts? It will be fascinating to watch what happens there.
Robbie Keane appeared to be a decent candidate for Celtic but supporters thought otherwise
Signings continue to roll in from here, there and everywhere and you’d guess, even though investor Tony Bloom doesn’t run the show, that there will be a greater push for Jamestown-inspired players — such as £1million-plus Rodgers Mato and fitness-plagued Eduardo Ageu among others — to take bigger roles.
Of course, Celtic have all the advantages. They should also skate through the qualifying play-off and bank Champions League money too.
They’re still dominant in terms of winning domestic trophies and should be putting the game in a chokehold.
It just doesn’t feel that way, though. It feels like there’s more tumult ahead. That there’s no grand plan to sort out a club that’s been drifting for a while.
That’s all to the detriment of a board already in the crosshairs, but at least it keeps things interesting. The World Cup will be a nice diversion, but getting back to Life In
The Big Top at the start of August is where the thrills and spills and most delicious lunacy of all shall be found.
