Copyright scotsman
Previously all-conquering Celtic are not accustomed to the situation they find themselves in. The defending Premiership champions trail league leaders Hearts by eight points following their 3-1 defeat to them at Tynecastle on Sunday. It emphasised how much their level has dropped from last season, when they were a penalty shoot-out away from landing a domestic treble and reached the knock-out stages of the Champions League. Celtic dropped into the Europa League after losing to Kairat Almaty in this season’s play-off round and have already lost twice in the league, as well as draws with Rangers and Hibs. And amidst fan discontentment at the way the club is being run, this is the most difficult moment Celtic have faced since Rangers won the league in 2021. The defeat and performance at Tynecastle emphasised the issues this current Celtic team has. They were disjointed, lacking in fortitude, balance, fight, cutting edge, with any positive moments all too fleeting. Only two men managed to get pass marks in The Scotsman’s player ratings - goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel and captain Callum McGregor, who hauled them level in the first half. It has been well-documented how much disharmony is spreading through the club right now. Celtic are paying the price for a negligent recruitment strategy over the past two transfer windows. The board has allowed the squad to be weakened. In 2025, forwards Kyogo Furuhashi, Nicolas Kuhn and Adam Idah have been sold for nearly £30 million and not enough adequate replacements have been sourced. As a result, the Celtic fans are at war with the hierarchy and manager Brendan Rodgers’ relationship with his paymasters has been strained for months. What can Celtic do to change this? Well, until January, they cannot buy any more players. One expects them to be very active given the current landscape, but you can be never be sure with this Celtic regime. This is the squad available to them until the next transfer window reopens. In the immediate term, there are only so many home remedies Celtic can apply in attempt to ease the pain. The most drastic would be to part ways with manager Brendan Rodgers, an act of self-harm. While there is an increasing group of Celtic supporters questioning the manager, whose style of football is starting to grate and his team selections inducing bouts of head-scratching, Rodgers is one of the most successful managers in the history of the club. Across two spells he has plundered trophy after trophy. That should carry some degree of loyalty - especially when he would have been within his rights to walk after the debacle that was last summer’s signing policy. Rodgers is more likely than not to leave at the end of the season, when his contract expires. He will not want to depart on a low note, and two seasons ago rallied to the challenge thrown down by Philippe Clement’s Rangers team to win the league. Some Celtic fans pine for the return of Ange Postecoglou, recently sacked after 39 days at Nottingham Forest. It is debatable whether he would get a better tune out of this Celtic team. Nevertheless, like everyone at Celtic, Rodgers needs to up his game. Inside the Tynecastle media suite, he took responsibility and said he would continue to do so. He claimed he has never been more driven to succeed at Celtic. That’s all fine and well. But the 52-year-old needs to use all of his man-management nous to cajole a squad of players he likened to a Honda Civic two weeks ago. Celtic look short of confidence, but they also look short of fresh ideas. Is it time for a switch from Rodgers’ tried-but-perhaps-not-so-trusted 4-3-3 system? What Rodgers faces - and indeed any other manager would face in this situation - is a dearth of options in one key area. Celtic do not have a sufficient right-winger. Decorated winger James Forrest has been a fantastic servant to Celtic but at the age of 34, he is not able to impact games the way he used to. Regardless, he is probably better than Yang Hyun-jun, the hard-working South Korean with very little end product. It is galling that Celtic spent more than £10 million on not one but two left wingers and completely neglected the other flank. Sebastian Tounekti looks a handy player but Michel-Ange Balikwisha is taking longer to show his worth. Celtic had to send a delegation to Belgium to persuade him of a move from Antwerp. Maybe they shouldn’t have bothered. Rodgers also has a cruel injury list to contend with. That is not his fault. Flair winger Jota won’t be back until the new year following April’s ACL rupture. Centre-half Cameron Carter-Vickers’ Achilles problem could take five months to heal. Their key strikers, Daizen Maeda and Kelechi Iheanacho, have hamstring problems, while right-back Alistair Johnston - one of the team’s best players - aggravated his own. It is unlikely he and Iheanacho will return until mid-November, by which point Celtic could be further behind Hearts, further adrift in the Europa League and out of the Premier Sports Cup to Danny Rohl’s Rangers. Any team would toil without five important first-teamers. Regardless, Rodgers’ critics will point to his bench. Millions are still on it in the likes of Paulo Bernardo, Luke McCowan and Shin Yamada. Their options, in terms of financial outlay, still eclipse most teams in the league - perhaps all of them. It is another example of how no department is functioning properly. There is a domino effect at Celtic: the board have asset-stripped and failed to adequately recruit, leading to a dissatisfied fanbase, an increasingly dispirited manger, disharmony that is permeating from the stands all the way down to the pitch. Not one antibiotic can cure the infection. Several are required. Next year is the earliest date that Celtic can see the doctor. Until then, they must hobble on, a club handicapped by missteps - while hoping Hearts do not run away from them, and Hibs and Rangers do not catch them. What a place for the champions to be in.
