A siege mentality gamble

Season 2010-2011 was a right good laugh. Okay, we blew the league after being hungover at Inverness (Neil, thank you) but there was a real energy to the back and forth tussle for the title with Walter Smith’s Rangers. Celtic were a giant who had awoken from it’s slumber the previous season under Anthony Mowbray, and pushed our rivals, who had cruised to success in 09/10, all the way to the last day of the season.

That campaign had it all. ‘Dougie-Gate’, Hugh Dallas getting the sack, the refs strike, bombs and bullets, El Hadji Diouf and John Wilson.

The strike in particular was tremendous.

Back then, the support were unified, as were the players. Granted, the results in winter 2010 weren’t inspiring, but the crunch game at Ibrox on January 2nd 2011 proved that this was a Celtic team that played for their manager, and the celebrations from ‘Samaras Sunday’ showed that was the case.

In the lead up to that game, Lennon created a siege mentality that he used to galvanise the squad in the long term. The ‘everyone's against us’ narrative was fed to the players, who used that as motivation to produce some outstanding displays on the pitch that, had it not been for an over zealous bevvy after beating Dundee Utd in April 2011, we’d likely have been celebrating the first title of THE TEN.

Yesterday’s attempts at a siege mentality 2.0 was severely misplaced and ill timed.

Had we been anywhere near Rangers in the league and recorded a win this year, maybe I could buy it.

However, that outburst yesterday wasn’t a one off where the manager was shooting after a period of pent up frustration, it was yet more doubling down on this ill fated Dubai trip, where everyone got an earful, from Raith Rovers to the SNP.

It’s an almighty gamble to be foaming off like that before an extremely difficult game tomorrow night, which ultimately won’t count for much even if we win, other than boosting morale in the short term, until the next poor result, which, realistically looking at our run in of fixtures, will be in mid February or early March, if we get through Livingston unscathed.

Celtic haven’t said anything about it, at a time when every fan is questioning what is going through the managers head, which adds to the infuriating atmosphere surrounding the club and yet again, there is no transparency whatsoever meaning rumours and whispers continue to spread because we have an allergy to communicating with the supporters honestly and sincerely.

Let’s see what tomorrow’s game brings in the tragicomedy that is Celtic 2020/2021.