Keith Jackson has called an imminent Celtic ‘crisis’ after Sunday’s defeat to Dundee United.
The columnist has latched onto Sunday’s defeat to make the claim, with Martin O’Neill’s side left five points off the top with seven games remaining.
It’s hard to draw many positives as a Celtic fan after losing at such a crucial point in the season, especially as the defeat was thoroughly deserved.
But any Hoops fan can tell you that talk of a crisis is not the story after Sunday.
Your INSTANT REACTION to that loss 😡
Is the title race over?
Why Keith Jackson is wide of the Celtic mark
Jackson wrote in the Daily Record: “The game itself was an excruciating watch for Celtic’s dumbstruck travelling support.
“But the stats around yesterday’s defeat for the champions at Tannadice are nothing short of a horror story for a club which feels like it could be consumed by a full blown crisis at any given minute.
READ MORE: Hyeongyu Oh opens up on Celtic homesickness and song that helped him deal with it
“It wasn’t merely a story of a 2-0 thumping either. Given the amount of shots which cascaded down on Viljami Sinisalo’s goal, it could have been a great deal more gory than it turned out to be.
“No, this was an eighth league defeat of the season – and that’s the first time Celtic have been roughed up so often in the one season since the turn of the century, when John Barnes was in the Hoops dugout and Kenny Dalglish was carrying out his duties as director of golf.
“It was also a seventh successive top-flight game without a clean sheet. And that hasn’t been done to a team wearing green and white hoops since Gordon Strachan was at the helm 20 years ago.
“So, yes, a full blown crisis does feel imminent and perhaps even unavoidable, even if Martin O’Neill continues to try to keep the club from turning in on itself, at the age of 74.
“As he says himself, yesterday’s defeat hasn’t finished him off. O’Neill is simply not the sort to start running up the white flag, even though the odds are stacking up against him – as they have been since day one.
“However, he’s being asked to win a Premiership title without the services of a single reliable striker. And that’s when accidents happen.”
As Jackson’s final paragraph acknowledges, the real crisis goes far beyond what is happening on the pitch – and from now until the end of the season, that will not be the focus.
The reason why O’Neill is tasked with keeping the club from turning in on itself is that he is one of, if not the only, individual capable of doing that at this minute.
What position would Celtic be in NOW if Brendan Rodgers was still in charge?
Things could've been very different…
Is Celtic’s season over?
We didn’t learn a lot about Celtic at the weekend.
There’s no doubt that this current group of players fall desperately short of the very high standards that have been set over recent years.
For Under O’Neill, they have shown an ability to win without playing well, on quite a remarkable scale. But there have always been serious doubts over whether this is sustainable.
In a season with as many twists and turns as this one, it simply isn’t over until it’s over – especially with Hearts and Rangers still to visit Celtic Park again.
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
