Often in football you hear the words “Game management” it refers, as I am sure you all know, to managing a tight game, making sure you are keeping the ball at the right times, stepping up at the right times and managing your squad through a game.
What is often not discussed, in the terms of Scottish football, is season management, it’s a very similar situation, we often don’t have to discuss as Celtic, very often, are so many points ahead that season management is not really relevant other than win the next game.
This season has been different.
Season management has been vital this season.
We have had a new manager, new system for the players to adapt to, possibly some clashes in the dressing room, horrendous injuries and a brat cult who behave like children every time something goes wrong.
This season has been about getting to where we have as a full and fit squad as possible and are prepped for the final few games.
And we are there.
Now some of us have said that this was going to be the case earlier in the season, I certainly did, oh I was shouted down, of course I was, how many of the brats screamed and cried that we should never have to manage a season this way and, as always, began to attack the club. and claimed that we would never, ever, win a title again.
What’s funny, not in a comical way but in a dark twisted way, is that the shit that was thrown at the wall of the club is now being used by that brat cult to say they are responsible for Celtic getting here. Read The Celtic Blog piece on it.
All cults, especially the leadership, use anything they can, no matter where it came from, as signs that they were correct, when in fact it was not, they who did what they claim. It’s part of their dogma “look I said that, I am your God”
However, we are here, as I said in the previous pieces, we are in pole position. It’s not just in our hands, it’s so tightly in our hands that you can see the panic at Ibrox.
We have to do the job, of course we do, that’s where the season management kicks in again, and we have a manager that has shown exactly that he knows how to do that. He will prepare the team and ensure that they take nothing for granted, we won’t have the distraction of the press claiming that we will just have to turn up to win, we will always have the “If this happens and that happens then you never know”. That is why we will prepare well.
The Belgian Waffle claimed, last night, that the title was still in their hands, it is not, either he has no idea how the game works or he has belief that the referees will have something to say still but I think that has been limited as much as it can be by how the club, not the fans, have taken on the SFA. I don’t believe we will ever get called fair, as the appointment of Don Robertson on Saturday tells us, but they know the club, specifically DD and the lawyers, are watching.
When the Waffle arrived at Ibrox there was the usual fawning and licking of arse, he was a messiah, as they all have been, he got the bounce and we dropped and he was going to destroy us, nope. Then they went top as we managed through another spell of unavailable players and they were going to destroy us, nope. Now, after their loss at Motherwell they have dropped taken 5 points from 15 in the league having conceded 9 goals. I know others have said this, but it deserves repeating, imagine in that was a stat of ours? We lost to Kilmarnock and Hearts in the league last year and were told that BR would have been sacked if he didn’t win at Livingston.
The talk is of bottle and winning mentality, you know where you get that from? Better players, which has been asked this season about the Celtic squad, “how good are they really?”
We will see now, I think we will step up to another gear in the run in, these past few games we have seen glimpses and halves of games where we have been strong, I can see that happening more now.
If it does then the team, the manager and club have times it to perfection, they have managed the season as best they could with all that has happened.
The Celtic Family 