Brendan Rodgers has only lost two points on the road this season. And only two points out of a possible 15 in league play at home.
But the Celtic manager is under enormous pressure, which begins today when his team hosts Aberdeen. It wouldn’t be difficult to sense a season unravelling. Daizen Maeda is the most recent long-term injury victim. Despite numerous signings, the squad is thin. Europe has been a disaster. The club and the Green Brigade are still at odds, which will undoubtedly worsen today due to prohibited flags. Maeda, Kyogo Furuhashi, and Oh Hyeon-gyu will miss a number of games in the new year due to international commitments. Then there are the
Celtic Park will be an unusual venue for today’s game against Aberdeen. After watching their team be beaten to a pulp by Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, the home crowd will be suffering from the football equivalent of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Because it is Remembrance Sunday, there will be the obligatory commotion over poppies, silence for the dead, and the inevitable howls of contempt from wherever over whatever form of disruption occurs. There’s also football to consider. This season, the Viaplay Cup is no longer available. The Champions League, in particular, and European football in general, have been eliminated for the season.
Children count the number of sleeps between now and Christmas. Celtic fans are counting how many more humiliations they will suffer in Group E before December to demonstrate their inability to compete at the highest level.
Just Lazio away, then Feyenoord at home, and it’s all over. But have Celtic fans considered the Yuletide nightmare that awaits them if Rodgers is not careful?
Rangers could arrive at Celtic Park on 30 December having already won the season’s first silverware, defeating Aberdeen in the Viaplay Cup Final. And if they beat their main rivals, they may be able to dethrone Rodgers’ team from the top of the league table.
It would be a monumental symbolic gesture for Philippe Clement, the Ibrox manager who has begun to cast a large shadow in the background.
There’s an extra banner. It reads, “Heartless.” Passionless. Clueless.” It was last seen at St Mirren’s stadium on October 8, when Rangers played there. We know the owners are done with it because Rangers fans put up another one at Ibrox on Thursday night before the Europa League match against Sparta Prague that said, “Delete last message.”
That well-known phrase about deserving better appears to have been read and understood by all supporters. “Remorseless.” is a more current slogan. Relentless. Redoubtable.”
I’m not sure what Clement, the manager who hasn’t lost a game since he arrived four weeks ago, is on about some of the time. What does it mean, for example, to “control the controllables”? Whatever he says and does, however, results in the transformation of a team that was heading nowhere prior to his arrival in Govan.
Everyone in the club now jumps to his tune as if it were a Strictly dance routine. Every training session, let alone game, must be a command performance or the big stick is drawn.
I’m not going out on a limb to predict that Clement’s unbeaten streak will continue today at Livingston. The Rangers are undeniably on the rise, and their ceiling has yet to be determined.
They currently have an eight-point lead over Celtic. Rangers’ next game is against St Johnstone at home. So let’s call it five points. That is why, beginning today, Rodgers must work to avoid the December 30 Doomsday scenario.
It’s one thing to be humiliated in the Champions League, but to have your domestic league dominance threatened is quite another. What did anyone in Europe expect?
Last Sunday, I tried to warn you: “A night of potential embarrassment awaits Celtic in the Champions League when they travel to Atletico Madrid.”
Rodgers was correct. Celtic are not a fill-in act. They are a downgrade from a support act because they remain irrelevant in Europe.
They have tens of millions of pounds stashed away in the bank. But has there ever been a more depleted subs bench than the one that sent Oh, Yang Hyun-jun, Odin Thiago Holm, and Tomoki Iwata into a Champions League match against Atletico Madrid?
Depth of strength? Please do me a favour.
David Turnbull is exempt because he has previously demonstrated that he is worth the money paid for him. Likewise, Luis Palma, who shows promise.
Celtic lost six goals and had four central defenders who did not play: Gustaf Lagerbielke, Yuki Kobayashi, Maik Nawrocki, and Nat Phillips. Paulo Bernardo played from the start, but you’d never know. The final two from the summer intake, Kwon Hyeok-kyu and Marco Tillio, are for the Missing Persons Bureau to find, but they are indicative of a transfer policy gone horribly wrong.
In any case, what happened to James McCarthy? You’d need photographic proof that he still lives in Scotland, let alone plays for Celtic. The only positive thing to say about Europe is that Celtic are better off staying out of it while they focus on defending their league title. And they’d be better off with Rangers still in the Europa League in case it becomes a distraction to their still-viable challenge to prevent Celtic from winning three in a row.
Celtic will never violate the 2022 Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act. They are a damp squib in Europe.
Rodgers speaks Spanish fluently. He’ll realise what happened in the Metropolitano was a simple case of ya visto. That’s déjà vu for both of us. Show Celtic a Champions League tie, and they’ll lose.
Today they face an Aberdeen team that played in the Europa Conference League in Greece on Thursday night and has two days less recovery time than Celtic. Rodgers now has a “domestic” to deal with. One wrong move could spark chaos among a base that already has plenty of reasons to be fearful and pessimistic.
I’ll be surprised if Brendan stays at Celtic next season. The manager was sold a dubious deal. Rodgers will voluntarily scan the Situations Vacant column if he does not win the league title.
