I dont doubt his hands were tied in terms of the transfer market. Board clearly got complacent in that final season thinking they could win without looking to the future with an aging squad that was on its arse. But my issue with Strachan was his inability to change formation and make better use of players he had there. I mean lads like Jarosik were good enough to start CL games but not SPL games. He always played 442 with wingers playing on their weaker side - which worked well initially - but soon after everyone, inclduing oposition teams, knew exactly what was coming and countered it. There was no plan B with Strachan. Lennon to me shows glipses of willingness to try new ideas. Problem is some of them will be ****e and he must take the blame for that when it happens. But if you dont try these things you'll never know if it works. He is learning still and maybe next year in the CL (if we get there) he wont simply try the same formation that worked 2 years ago but try formations to beat each opposition team the face based on their strengths
The formation/tactics for the last two years were "pump it long & hope Sammy gets on the end or wins a set piece" Those tactics were sussed out by Juve before this years competition even began. Hence why we were ****e and got repeatedly pumped in the group stage. The game against Milan at home where he played Sammy up front by himself was a joke. Hopefully if we make the group stage next season he'll have something else up his sleeve. Can't watch another 6 games of that mince again.
When you look back on the Juve game they had their homework done and set up to stop us. All the pulling/fouling at free kicks and corners was down to the simple fact thats where our goals came from. So they deliberately set out to upset us at set pieces - and it worked. Hopefully as I say Lennon will have learned. Dont just pick the same 11. Take each game as it comes and do your homework
Well Hiddink would have been brought in and would have tried to use the typical 'Dutch philosophy' of attractive passing football (all good, right?), competing to win the league against a Rangers team who at the time had already had two years under their belt with their own Dutch manager. They had spent ridiculous sums of money on their squad, and had we tried to match them by playing that same brand of football we'd have had to rival their spending, probably. In hindsight, as we all know, that type of spending within the Scottish game - which has a very low revenue - just isn't sustainable. Also, we'd have needed more time for the team to 'click'. It takes longer to adapt to the style of football managers like Hiddink set out their teams to play. This probably would have meant losing out on the title that year, and back then Celtic managers weren't afforded that luxury. If the board stayed true to form Hiddink would have been offski and we'd be back to square one. So as it happened, we brought in O'Neill. No doubt he was backed financially by the board, although had nowhere near as much to spend as Advocaat. Whilst spending more than we ever have, the money was used wisely. Without O'Neill we wouldn't have seen the likes of Sutton, Hartson, Thompson (not Hiddink's type anyway) who other than Larsson were probably our most important players. O'Neill adopted the physical, direct British style of football, that was the only way that we could break the huns' dominance IMO and it's the only way we were able to grind out results even if we never played well. That's something we hadn't managed in years. I'd be willing to bet if we'd signed Hiddink, there'd be none of the Suttons or Thompsons, no treble in the first year, no UEFA Cup final, Larsson would have left earlier, and he'd have been out the door after a season of losing the league again. All ifs and buts and it's only what I think could've happened but to me that's comparitively disastrous to what happened under O'Neill.
He could have been our Le Guen IMO. Tried to change too much too soon and wouldnt maybe have had the instant success that was needed. Now in the long run if he had been given the 5 years O'Neill had he probably would have left a better side/squad than the one O'Neill left...maybe But I agree O'Neill was the perfect choice
Not bad, but I just dont think theres any way a club like Celtic should have been passing up the chance to have a manager like Hiddink
I'd agree with anportmorbhoy with the Le Guen comparison. O'Neill was perfect for Celtic and if I had the choice to go back and swap him for Hiddink... No way.
In Beale, we already have a ready-made Lennon replacement Not606 Celtic Board Box at Celtic Park when Bealey takes over.
Basically it doesn't matter to a great degree...but I think it helps If we had a choice...who of the following would you pick as boss if available/alive Jock Stein or Alex Ferguson Assume they're at their prime
If I was making that appointment I would look at their management style, their past teams football, management record, achievments, future plans. Nothing else really.
