Celtic Diary Tuesday January 11: He’s Doing It His Way

With two more signings in the bag, Ange Postecoglou is starting to look like a man with a mission.

Riley McGee, who we long to see, joined Johnny Kenny as the rebuild gained pace.

And admit it, your little heart stooped momentarily because you thought we’d brought back JohnJo Kenny from Everton.

One of our pish stained drunks found a phone on the car park outside Celtic Park, and out of curiosity switched it on and played back the messages.

There were dozens, and all of them were along the same theme.

A Irish voice, asking Mick to ring him fucking back and tell him what the fecks going on.

Otherwise, apparently, Peter will be back in and he’ll sort you fecking out.

It’s actually quite clear what’s going on.

Some time go, Schrodingers Cat..not his rea name..published an article on this site, which discussed the Alpha Male factor.

Briefly, he argued that inder O’Neill, control of the team was in the dressing room.

Lawwell took that back to the boardroom, largely because of the expense.

Celtic’s model , as we know, is not to spend freely, or ambitiously.

It’s just to keep ahead of Rangers. Or, latterly, ” rangers”.

When Brendan Rodgers stopped by to resurrect his career, the control shifted back to the dressing room.

There ensued a battle between the two which ended with Rodgers heading to Leicester and Lawwell rehiring Neil Lennon.

We all know how that turned out.

Lawwell went as part of the fallout, and with Eddie Howe refusing to come to Glasgow without his mates, Amge Postecoglou saved the club a lot of face by travelling halfway round the world, withoit his mates, to take on the job of putting the band back together.

Except he’s not putting it back together, he’s hired a while new rhythm section and a couple of energetic front men.

And he’s hiring the ones he wants.

Michael Nicholson, who replaced Dominic McKay, who briefly replaced Peter Lawwell, isn’t a particularly strong character.

When Postecoglou said he was easy to work with, i got the feeling he meant house trained.

However, Nicholson is actually playing a blinder here, and prompting a rethink of his character.

It takes a degree of strength to acknowledge that sometimes , to get results, you have to let the most capable fellow just get on with it, supporting him when necessary, but also holding him back if he gets a bit carried away.

So far, it’s plain he is doing the former.

As for the latter , we will.wait and see.

And that’s the only worry I have.

Not with Celtic. Not primarily , at least.

It’s the forces of darkness that threaten to envelop us.

And with the support concentrating fully on the good stuff , which there’s plenty of, we seem to have forgotten one or two very important points.

Firstly, this season we’ve seen an active part played by officials in protecting and promoting the new club

They’re getting not favours or help as such, but the benefit of applied rules where perhaps others would not.

Soft penalties, softer free kicks, opponents sent off where maybe a little discreet warning would have been a more respnsible and sporting action.

That’s not cheating because the letter of the law is being applied, whereas the spirit is being ignored.

It will continue to happen when the season resumes.

You know that.

I know that.

Everyone knows that.

What will we do about it?

As usual, nothing.

Unless we actively form a supporters and shareholders group along the lines suggested by Resolution 12 campaigner Auldheid, as mentioned in the last Diary, nothing will change.

We seem to be happy competing with a financially doped outfit in a rigged set up.

Ultimately, that may cost us the current manager. And a few of our top new men.

If the new guys are kicked about as freely as Kyogo has been, and labelled a cheat similarly, they won’t hang around.

Put simply, we need to get our act together to stop the inevitable drive to keep the current entity at Ibrox in place.

If you were at the SFA, or the SPFL, you would probably be of the opinion that an Ibrox club is vital ti the well being of the game.

The blue pound is paramount , at least to their way of thinking.

And as Monty Burns pointed out on a recent podcast we did, if the current Ibrox club went the way of the original one, wjere the overall business model is concerned, with what would you replace it?

They have no answer for that.

Indeed , Celtic have no answer for that either, which explains their collusion inntrying to save the original entity.

With thinhs looking promising on the pitch, it’s important not to neglect matters off it.

Let Ange get on with the job of winning, domestically and internationally.

Support him in building his vision, one which promises to get Celtic back to where they belong.

But don’t forget that by nature our board is quite conservative, and unless we get together to act as a control of sorts on them, sooner or later they’ll put the brakes on Ange.

We cannot allow that.