Celtic hero Stiliyan Petrov claims the next manager will not have the luxury of a rebuild.
After a disastrous season, talk has been all about a new manager, a new Director of Football and a new playing squad. Scott Brown has announced he’ll be departing, along with Peter Lawwell, leaving the board with an awful lot of decisions to make.
Petrov was privy to the massive shake-up of 2000, with Martin O’Neill coming in. While you could argue that it was a rebuild by modern standards, it was certainly a successful one. Celtic beat Rangers 6-2 in Martin O’Neill’s first Derby, and won a domestic treble.
Having taken part in that success, Petrov is convinced that Celtic’s next appointment will have similar expectations. On the Celtic Huddle Podcast [7.23], Petrov said:
“I don’t think you can be a Celtic manager and say it’s a rebuilding project. There’s no such thing. When you go to a club like that… I came from a foreign country, and I had to learn very quickly. I had to understand the DNA of the club, the demands of the club, demands of the fans.
“When you’re as a manager, you don’t have time to do that. If you manage a club like Celtic, you have to win. You have to win as much as much as you can. If you don’t… you lose your job. That’s the way it is.
“This is a job when people [have] to be expected to win. No rebuilding process, no rebuilding time.”
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Celtic hero Stiliyan Petrov still has immense passion for the club, and it shows
Petrov, having seen it and done it with Celtic, knows that it’s possible to turn a club around. From the doldrums of losing to Inverness Caledonian Thistle, to battling for the UEFA Cup and doing a domestic clean sweep, Petrov was there, and was central.
The creative midfielder is still a massively popular name amongst Celtic supporters. That won’t change with these comments, which have more than a grain of truth to them. We are an expectant bunch, and while there’s a little leeway to get things right, the leash of a Celtic manager is very short.
We want the moon on a stick, and we know it. Being used to league domination over the past decade has perhaps skewered our sense of what’s possible with a new manager, and I include myself in that. Stiliyan Petrov knows how demanding we are as Celtic supporters, but it makes it all the sweeter for players who impress and achieve while they’re wearing our famous colours.
He later said he didn’t want to be an assistant manager at the club, which is a bit of a shame. Nevertheless, it’d be great to see Stan the Man at the club in an official capacity one day.