Naivety was Mowbray’s Celtic downfall
Mogga’s final comments were hard to accept
Quite often, the last comments made by a manager can say the most about their reign. Tony Mowbray’s comments in the wake of the 4-0 capitulation to St Mirren have painted him as a naive man.
Stating that the tactics he deployed were possibly not suitable for the SPL and that a negative outlook as favoured by Rangers, would have been better casts him in a poor light. Especially when his team never hit the heights that Rangers managed at times this season.
Mowbray is no stranger to Scottish football. He is no Paul Le Guen coming into a foreign culture and set-up. As a player, Mowbray played in a poor era for Celtic and managed Hibs for a moderately successful period. How can he claim to not know what is required for the SPL?
A massive reason for Mowbray’s failure is the way he allowed his midfield 2 to be swamped by the opposition. Other teams knew that they could nullify Celtic’s possession by outnumbering them in midfield and pressing hard. Even managers like Eddie May and Gus McPherson, who have looked tactical simpletons on other occasions, have worked this out.
At times, Tony Mowbray tried to alter this but in doing so, he alienated the striker and prevented Celtic from retaining the ball up front.
It is ironic that Mowbray’s other weakness was his defence. It was initially the same defence that Gordon Strachan deployed but he knew to play a defensive midfielder to protect them. A Paul Hartley or Neil Lennon defensive prowler does have a place in Tony Mowbray’s vision of how to play football.
Ultimately, it has helped to cost him his job.
There are many other topics to explore under the Tony Mowbray “where did it all go wrong?” debate.
Double substitutions disrupting the teams flow
Frequent team rotation
Publicly criticising players
There is also the idea that he was unable to motivate players. We don’t to be offensive about players but they maybe find some instructions too difficult to carry out. They respond better to encouragement, team unity and believing in someone and it seemed that the Celtic squad were not fully behind Mowbray.
The cliché of “running through a brick wall” for a manager says it all about the mentality of footballers. Perhaps Tony Mowbray never engaged them in a way that they recognised. There must be so much more to come out about Mowbray’s time at Celtic that you winder if the full story will ever be heard?
Most people will wish Tony Mowbray all the best but his dismissal was the best for Celtic and probably even for himself.
What now for Tony Mowbray?
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
With the best will in the world, anyone could get the Celtic job and sit in front of the media and wax lyrical about the football philosophy and explain that the beautiful game should be just that, play in a Barcelona style way that see’s you dominate teams and entertain the fans at the same time.
First things first, you need the players to be able to do that. With the exception of McGeady and Keane latterly, the rest are not at a level where they could dominate any team with their free flowing football.
Secondly, you need a defence that can defend. So often throughout the season there has been a look of fragility and fear amongst the Celtic back four, so often exploited by run of the mill teams both at home, but especially away.
You also make mention of the relationship with the players, publicly stating that you need to replace up to 10 players not long into the season, was only going to have one effect on morale and it certainly wasn’t a positive one.
And finally, for all the fanfare of Celtics ‘Nike Monday’ making so many changes to a team at such a crucial stage of the season, was never going to work against a well drilled, organised and motivated Rangers team, however threadbare the squad may be.
Had the board supported WGS in the previous January, I firmly believe that Celtic would be looking at 5IAR this May, instead they have presided over a period in which Rangers were on their knee’s financially and assisted them in gaining two years of Champions League money by their incompetence off the park.
Celtics strong balance sheet, often lauded in the press and from the fans, will be looking somewhat weaker in the coming year. Any new manager worth his salt will need at least £10-£15M to restructure that team, question is who will be the manager and will he get what he wants?
Quagz,
If the board’s bungling incompetence is obvious to you, a proud bear, how do you think we feel? As you say 5IAR would probably be on it’s way!
Ah well, enough of the what-ifs. Let’s get the right man in and start the quest for an unprecedented 1IAR!