Former Celtic defender Christopher Jullien believes the reason why new signings and players didn’t perform during the 2020/21 season is mainly down to the lack of crowds at matches.
Supporters were unable to attend games throughout the entirety of the season due to pandemic protocols, leaving a team that thrived on the energy of a crowd plying their trade in soulless stadiums.
Results suffered and the campaign quickly unravelled, leaving Celtic at a precarious crossroads which Ange Postecoglou has remedied expertly.
“The worst season of my life”
Reflecting on the highs and lows of his time at the Bhoys in an interview with The Scottish Mail on Sunday [19/02 print edition, page 102], Jullien was clear with his opinions on that year, including the difficulties of teammates such as Shane Duffy and Vasilis Barkas.
He said: “That was the worst season of my life. I knew that ten in a row was a pressure but I still feel like it was something else that was between us and the title.
“We went from 60,000 fans to none and our team suffered a lot for that. It was the opposite with Rangers, it helped them. These stadiums were cold, silent. It was not football. For me that was what killed us. I know people say it was the pressure of getting ten in a row but in my gut it was missing the fans.
“You have to realise that when you sign for Celtic you are told that whatever happens you will have those fans behind you. When you get into the huddle and Scott Brown or Cal (McGregor) do their speech it’s like ‘wow’ – and when you rise the fans all roar and react. The new players really wait for that moment but it just never happened for these guys. Not even one time!
“Vasilis Barkas and Shane Duffy definitely suffered. You could see Shane enjoyed his football, that he was a really good talent. But this was Lockdown time. These players were probably at home by themselves. Maybe their wives couldn’t join them at first. There’s a lot of stuff we don’t know behind closed doors.”
Celtic weren’t down for long
Jullien also talks warmly of Neil Lennon and John Kennedy during the interview suggesting that, from the players’ perspective, it was external forces that derailed the bid for ten-in-a-row.
Some fans have certainly shared that viewpoint too since that fateful season, though others believe that the team was mismanaged through that period, at the tail-end of unprecedented domestic success.
Through the two extremes, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. There’s absolutely no doubt that Celtic’s football suffered in empty stadiums. But, ultimately, it was nothing that other teams didn’t have to contend with too.
Thankfully, Celtic have roared back to dominance in Scotland under Postecoglou, bagging a title, a Scottish League Cup and forging ahead in multiple competitions this season too.
Reflecting on the days of 2020/21 these days is just a bad memory, rather than the living horror it felt like at the time. Celtic weren’t down for long.
In other news, Callum McGregor praises ‘special’ Reo Hatate after Celtic thump Aberdeen.
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