Things aren’t going to plan at Celtic this season. You don’t need to be a student of the game to understand that. Everyone knows it, even that lot across the city know it.
With manager Neil Lennon left fuming by team leaks and some of his players wanting to leave the club, it also feels like that it is all going as horribly off the pitch than on it.
The recent defeat to Rangers naturally brings everything into sharp focus, and the Celtic boss has taken the brunt of the criticism.
Rightly so, in my opinion.
Ultimately the performances of the team are his responsibility, and the serious questions that hang over the Bhoys right now are of his making.
Why do we look so shapeless and tactically out of ideas, as Jackie McNamara told 67 Hail Hail on Monday? Why are some of our most important players of the last few years not fit?
McNamara, a former captain let’s not forget, was clearly frustrated and angry with what’s going on at the club right now, like all of us.
Some have called for the manager to go but, while I completely understand that viewpoint, I think it is wholly unrealistic at the moment. The club will give him time to dig us out of this hole.
That means the only man who can fix the current malaise at Celtic and start to turn around results is Neil Lennon himself. And we need the old one back.
We need the brash, outspoken, passionate man-manager who has built a legacy at the club to be proud of. It’s a legacy too great to tarnish by failing to win ten-in-a-row.
It dismayed me to see Lennon in the dugout on Saturday looking like a passenger to the slow car crash unfolding in front of us, arms folded and glum.
It annoys me to hear him in the media talking about internal matters in a rather accusatory and paranoid way.
Only Lennon can take control of this situation and ensure he is not a bystander to a tactically lost Celtic team sleepwalking to disaster.
I want to see him flex whatever authority he has. I want a siege mentality, even if it’s logically not justified.
He has the power to make big changes and raise standards at the club, and he must.
If things aren’t right behind the scenes, now is not the time to moan about it, it’s simply time to fix it.
The inquest into the Rangers defeat has been long and arduous, but the fightback begins this week, and we have to see improvement in performances before the next international break.
If we don’t, and the 2020 Lennon continues to look forlorn and devoid of a plan, it will be game over.
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