Leaders or marquee players for Celtic?

Both are needed, will the club get them?

Love him or loathe him, Neil Lennon is a fairly honest character and his interviews are usually worth listening to. Certainly any Celtic fan who heard his post-match analysis of the Scottish Cup semi-final debacle would have found themselves in agreement with the caretaker managers view of the game and the players on show.

That didn’t make the defeat any easier to take but it at least showed that someone involved with the club understood the hurt the fans were feeling and the depths the club had sunk to. You couldn’t say the players felt the same way.

Anyways, in a recent interview, Lennon was asked about the players the club needs for next season and he mulled over the scenario of buying leaders or a marquee signing.

There is an argument that a marquee signing like Robbie Keane will help galvanise the support and help fill the empty seats at Celtic Park. However, through no fault of Keane, that really hasn’t happened. Yes, there was a spike in home attendances after Keane’s signature but the same old failings in other areas of the park have more than negated this boost.

Celtic lack leaders at this moment in time and there is no doubt that a strong spine needs to be brought into the club to make them robust again. There is a theory that all successful teams are built from the back and you can see why this is the case.

If you don’t lose goals, you don’t lose games. If you give yourself the opportunity to nick a goal and have the chance of winning three points through a small number of chances, you will be heading in the right direction.

This also gives you a bit more time and space to then focus on the creative end at the front end of the pitch. Barcelona can get away with a cavalier spirit going forward but it is also overlooked that they are one of the hardest working teams in Europe. And of course, Barcelona should never be held up as an example for other teams, at times, they are in a world of their own.

Celtic have struggled even with Keane in their side because the backline hasn’t looked confident of keeping teams out. Losing goals puts more pressure on the forwards to score with every chance and this will only end in tears and defeat. Especially when you had a manager whose reaction to falling behind was to go gung-ho and sometimes end up with five or six forward minded players on the park streaming forward.

You cannot play Russian Roulette every time and not expect one game to end badly.

So…exciting names will get fans interested and upbeat again…but then a loss at Kilmarnock will waste all the feel-good factor that had been built up.

By all means Celtic should think about getting in a player who will excite fans and get people off their seats (in a good way) but it has to be balanced out with the ability to keep the back door locked and to have some determination when things are going wrong.

In one respect, it seems like a tall order but in Scottish football, either of the big two are never that far away from making a huge reversal in fortunes. If Celtic correct their spinal problems from this season and are able to be motivated in the vast majority of games, next season is unlikely to be as bleak as this one has been.

It’s sure to be an interesting summer at Celtic Park!

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