Next season

Afternoon all.

Not been on here much of late so apologies if I’m going over old news (I probably will be!)
I have been thinking a lot recently about the future for this Celtic squad. The players and the management.

Now, I’ll start with the management:

I think that Neil Lennon has done a good job since he took over from Tony Mowbray. We were an absolute state when he came in and he had to strip the squad and almost rebuild from scratch. Now, this process can take 4 or 5 years at most clubs but Lennon managed to do it in only a few months.

We were only a couple of games away from a treble last season and the same applied again this season. Lennons record of 2 trophies in 2 season isn’t anything special, he’ll be aware of this aswell. Now, I still don’t think he’s any kind of tactical genius, and his team have also faltered many times when the pressure has been on, but he has been a very good manager for us because he has taken us from a position of weakness and put us into a position of strength.
One thing that I think may always hamper his efforts is his demeanour after defeats. This is something that he really needs to deal with, and I mean right now. Not over the coming months, now. Every time he has one of his ridiculous outbursts it just drags our club down. Now, I understand why he does it. He’s a Celtic fan. If you interviewed most of us right after a match that we had lost we’d all say daft things aswell, I’d rather not think what would happen if you offered football fans the opportunity to confront the referee after a game!! Lennon has to separate the passion of him being a Celtic fan and him being the Celtic manager.

I haven’t been the biggest fan of his as a manager but he has taken us to a league title this season, our first in 4 years. If I can’t be grateful for that, I shouldn’t be a Celtic fan.

Anyway, onto the players:

I hope (after the weekend) Lennon has a look at some of the fringe players at Celtic. I think we need to trim the fat (no Commons jokes please). We have far too many players on high wages that aren’t doing enough to earn them. I hate to imagine what our wage bill must be.
I’d like to see us get Forster in on a permanent deal. There are rumours that have been going around that we have a clause that says we can get him for £2million, if this is true then it’s a no brainer. He’s worth more than double that. By far and away the best keeper in Scotland.

We are going to have to finance our transfer dealinings this summer by selling a few of the current squad.

I hope that the management team are seriously considering some of our younger players. It’s obvious that they have ability. The lad Twardzik that played in the second half at Kilmarnock looked comfortable on the ball and showed some nice touches. Maybe a bit small, but he’ll develop. And with any of Kayal, Brown, Wanyama or Ledley beside him he should be well looked after.
Tony Watt looks like a very good prospect, surely this guy isn’t too far off top team action? He’s also a fairly big lad, which makes a difference from Stokes and Hooper. As with Twardzik, he’ll develop aswell. A few months in the gym and he could be pushing his way into contention, hopefully anway. McGeough, looks very similar to Forrest. Likes to get the ball and run with it. He can go past a player and score goals aswell.

So, when you look at the younger guys coming up you’ll see why I don’t think that we need too much coming in the way. For a club with such good youth teams and players, we don’t utilise this resource nearly as much as we should. These boys could (I say could) save the club million, and also make us millions. If they are developed properly, and if they take their chances.

I also think we should be looking more and more at the youth players because I don’t think we’ll have that much to spend in the summer. Everyone knows that when we are on top, this board considers that to be enough. That’s why, with the state that Rangers are in, I expect the board to tell Lennon to sell a few before he starts to buy.

As always, thanks for reading (if you stuck with the whole thing even more thanks!) and comments and/or insults are welcome.