Celtic - Time for a Change of Thinking

Article by e-Celtic's Jim Payne

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As I start writing this article Celtic does not have a manager.

It was widely trailed that Roy Keane was going to be appointed- indeed two articles appeared on this site in anticipation of confirmation of the rumour- but he ruled himself out of contention. Whether he was ever as serious a candidate as has been assumed is a question we'll probably never really know the answer to. On the whole issue - beginning with the still largely unexplained resignation of Neil Lennon- Celtic has been characteristically, if for once understandably, very quiet.

I didn't particularly fancy Keane for the job - but few , if any, of the other names dreamt up in the traditional or new media set my pulse racing. Word on the street suggests an appointee who'll be given less money than was given to Neil Lennon last year with Forster and Van Dijk moved on to fund any purchases. Such a pessimistic scenario suggests downsizing yet again . But at this time - 10.20 am on the third of June in Anniesland Station - it's all speculation . Celtic will present the world with a new manager who'll be pictured with a green-and-white bar scarf above his head and he will tell us he has money to spend.

My money would be on a Scottish appointee - and quite probably one who has worked extensively up here. The new manager will not thrill those expecting a real coup- or even David Moyes- but he could turn out to be good or better. I'll judge him when I see how his team plays and on the results his version of Celtic gets.

Celtic find themselves in an unexpectedly tough situation after Lennon's departure - even if they are overwhelming favourites to retain the Scottish Premiership. The policies pursued by the club's hierarchy have been thrown into sharper focus . The lack of empathy between a vast bulk of the support and the Celtic hierarchy has never been more evident.

Dermot Desmond owns around 40% of the shares in Celtic and I understand controls enough of the other shares to be the effective owner of Celtic. He rarely attends AGMs or matches and when he does come to Scotland his main interest seems to be playing golf on courses reserved for the great and the good. It has been assumed that Desmond was the man who oversaw Martin O'Neill's appointment in 2000 instead of the favourite Guus Hiddink but since then Mr Desmond has been pretty quiet. It has been assumed that Desmond was the man behind the recent Keane stories - this may or may not be truth -but other than expressing the desire to see some of the Celtic support who questioned his generosity go and jump in a river, that is it for for Dermot.

Desmond's representative in Paradise is Peter Lawwell who arrived as Chief Executive not long after Celtic lost to Porto in the UEFA Cup Final of 2003. It is fair to say that Celtic has not been a big spender since. It is widely assumed - though certainly never confirmed- that Lawwell is acting under strict instruction from Desmond. Lawwell works hard and thankfully we've avoided the financial catastrophes, swindling and borderline lunacies that destroyed Rangers and which crippled Hearts. Job done?

Maybe but few have thanked him as many of us feel that Celtic's ambitions have shrunk as he steered our club with a more orthodox business style than our main rivals. I think he's good at what he does but I remain ambivalent towards the impact he has had on my club.

Celtic need not just a new first team coach but a significant refocusing and restating of its goals. Celtic are well run financially -and that is terrific- but our strategy of buying low to sell high ensures we can never achieve what most fans think we are capable of.

Celtic will almost certainly never now be one of the mega-clubs of the World a la Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United and a few others from England, Germany, France and Italy. Given Scotland's small population we don't have the potential to become such a club in the way that the big clubs of Brazil, Argentina and maybe Russia could. But we could become like Porto and Benfica and be a club that consistently punches above its weight. The kind of club that fields teams which the mega-clubs respect and maybe even sometimes fear because we are consistently good at football and not just because the atmosphere our fans generate on big nights makes our players grow in self belief whilst opponents shrink in fear. Celtic needs to be something more than balance sheets and thinking that playing the Willie Maley song over our PA somehow acknowledges to the supporters that the current hierarchy is still interested in how we play. We need vision. We need to be all about the fitba.

And that means not just appointing a first team coach but a real European-style Director of Football. This last title is still viewed with suspicion by many in Britain, 'We don't have coaches we have managers and that's the way we have always done it' is the prevailing philosophy. So at Celtic and many other major clubs in Britain and Ireland we have coaches with almost no working experience outside of football being drawn into a world of contract negotiations, transfer wheeling and dealing, acting as something akin to a surrogate dad for wayward 'stars' as well as overseeing the football operation from youth level to the first team. And yet this same superman gets judged only on how that first team does. It is a stupid and unfair system that places unnecessary pressure on one man.

A Director of Football at Celtic has been tried before, between the summer of 1997 and the arrival of Martin O'Neill three years later. The novel approach worked less than perfectly I'll admit but it seemed a good idea. Martin O'Neill didn't like it and so we went back to the old ways. Which was fine when Celtic was paying biggish transfer fees and EPL level wages but when reality bit three or four years into his reign O'Neill's approach looked outdated on an off the pitch.

Celtic cannot compete with those mega-clubs in either the transfer or wages market in the way that it just about did until the early part of the last decade. The current strategy of buying low and selling high is flawed both in its thinking and execution. We need somebody to oversee the whole football side of thing - somebody who knows business but also a lot about football. That man should not be our next first team coach or Peter Lawwell. It should instead be someone who is, for example, prepared to take a tough decision regarding the long running failure of our expensive youth development system to produce players genuinely worth giving a run to. If he decides that means jettisoning the whole idea of developing our own players then so be it - even if I think that would be a sad development . But something has to be done to find out why lots of money is being spent on developing youngsters to win youth leagues in their teens and who are washed up by the time they are 20. If Celtic actually starts to bring through good young players to the big team as we consistently did until the early 80s then the need to take transfer punts on raw youngsters such as Amido Balde or under performing overpaid duds like Derk Boerrigter will hopefully disappear. The name of such a man is not something I would know - in the not so recent past I would have suggested the intelligent and experienced former Celtic boss David Hay but the club would have to look further afield now. But clubs in Europe and some over here manage it so why can Celtic not?

I wish Celtic new first team coach well - I hope he can build on the good things of the Lennon era and also instill a more consistently strong mindset than was often evident under Neil. But he should not be expected to perform near miracles at a club which other than in the McCann era has constantly tried to take shortcuts to long-term success for the last 28 years.

Celtic will not though be looking to do anything that will cost significant amounts of money. It's why our new manager will probably not be the highest paid manager in Scotland - bizarrely this is Ally McCoist if the various media reports are true- and why we shall continue to be run by men in suits who see only the bottom line. At Celtic the manager and star players are not the most important employees. The Chief Executive is. Sharp suited man though he is he seems more interested in cost cutting and building museums than having a great football team - sorry but Peter and Dermot but that isn't how it should be.

It's time for real change but I fear that we are really just in for more of the same.

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