So, Mr Desmond has decided Neil Lennon will continue to manage the side ahead of our European tie with AC Milan on Thursday night. If only they got basic business decisions to run as smoothly as they’ve managed to deflect from Sunday’s result against Ross County.
I wonder if Mr Desmond has ever run a business in this way prior, will ever in the future or is even now. I certainly find it hard to believe Celtic’s majority shareholder makes business decisions as some sort of reaction to a few souls in a car-park, particularly when he has little appetite for listening to the support at any other time. This simply smacks of a convenient smokescreen to cover glaring inadequacies when it comes to basic planning.
Desmond may be a little embarrassed as a couple of hundred fans protested on Sunday, but the Celtic PR machine sure as hell have played a blinder in ensuring the media narrative is spun to take full advantage and make the headlines all about a tiny minority of a tiny minority. Ensuring with some assistance from ex-players and media associates, that the fans turn on each other and deflect from the bigger picture – old school divide and conquer tactics.
It’s amazing how many headlines you can organise when you promise a few chosen allies in the press first dibs on who the new manager will be.
This year the Celtic board urged fans not to request a refund for last term’s cancelled games.
They then charged the same fans £510 plus to watch games for this season on an unreliable streaming service.
But apparently it’s the fans who have “an enormous sense of entitlement”.
— Celtic Wiki (@TheCelticWiki) December 1, 2020
Try as they might it can’t last. This is a sticking plaster on a wound that needs stitches. If there is something Dermot Desmond should be embarrassed about it’s at the basic level his International football club is being run and with all the business acumen of a corner shop.
Desmond’s ire, if he even really has any, should be directed to his CEO and his board. Yet it’s clear that all involved are simply playing for time, deflection tactics in play, as Lennon is pushed forward to advise he has a vote of confidence, when he clearly has little support from the board as a collective. If they did back their man, then rather than get Lennon to stand alone or plant the stories with a chosen few journalists, they’d do it themselves. Unless of course they require to deny at a later date.
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It’s far from surprising to see the Daily Record run with Desmond’s inside man quotes today, an immediate reward for their part in the headlines of yesterday steering the story away from performances on the park and a lack of planning off it – even their choice of newspaper shows the detachment from the support. It is fooling no-one. It does show however when they put their mind to something of a reactive nature they can certainly pull together, shame when it requires proactive groundwork they’re often found wanting.
Every company does scenario planning. Every department gets together and plans for short-, medium- and long-term possibilities indeed eventualities, and War Games a reaction to them. In my line of work its fire, floods, terrorism and pandemics. On Celtic’s list you’d be forgiven for thinking one on the short to medium term list would be the strong possibility a manager might need to be replaced at short notice. Given the deflection tactics in play you can only assume that’s not been done and hold ups and a lack of interest, rather than loyalty to the manager or any genuine anger with the support, are the reasons for the delay.
It probably doesn’t help when less than two years ago a host of candidates, who felt they were suitably qualified to apply for a vacant post, found out their application had been rejected rather publicly, even gleefully, as it was explained how Celtic had stuffed their efforts into a drawer and didn’t even consider them. Not looking a bright decision now, in a narrow window of opportunity, to have alienated a whole host of candidates who may now look on Celtic as an organisation they’d wish to avoid. Indeed, it is just as well they won’t have friends in the game who may well be interested this time around and may sound out a previous applicant.
So, when Desmond’s chosen rent-a-quote for the press uses lines like “Neil knows he can’t go on losing games indefinitely but he will also not be thrown to the wolves just because of the demands of a bunch of fans with an enormous sense of entitlement.” We know it is all bluster.
If there is anything the support feel entitled to it is a business run as well as it can be. No matter how the story is spun, it’s clear as day Desmond is the main man overseeing a business that is in need of change in the core aspect of its business – results on the field of play, previous self-sabotage and a clear lack of scenario planning has left us floundering.
Niall J
What seems to be happening now at Celtic is Dermot Desmond is furious at the proletariat asking questions so he’s backing the manager. The fact there is no plan B is merely coincidental. pic.twitter.com/ZuOSzWGDnY
— Paul Larkin* (@paullarkin74) December 1, 2020
The trouble on Sunday outside Celtic Park has played a big role in the current situation – the hierarchy are even more determined for Neil Lennon to turn things around and succeed.
The board will continue to talk and review their stance. https://t.co/ITGURrWS6k
— Anthony Joseph (@AnthonyRJoseph) December 1, 2020
