Chris Sutton Remains Critical of Celtic Board

After a really hard week watching Celtic lose three games the international break was upon us. Martin O’Neill spoke to the media after the defeat to the rangers and questioned if he would carry on as Celtic manager. Some would see this as a sign of weakness from a manager normally so clever with the media.

Celtic CEO, Michael Nicholas has backed the manager with the dreaded vote of confidence. The problem many Celtic fans have is that they do not have confidence in Michael or the Celtic board to run the club.

I interviewed former Celtic striker, Chris Sutton over the international break and he is in no doubt that the players have questions to answer but that the bigger problem lies at the door of those running the club . He questioned the recruitment set up at the club and their continued failure in recent transfer windows.

I watched the first of the three games on TV due to no away fans at Ibrox and then made two trips to Glasgow to watch in person at Celtic Park.

I described the first game at Ibrox as gutless and things did not get any better in the Europa League, the game was not a sell out and the atmosphere was like the night we lost to Roma in the Europa League last season when Wilfried Nancy was in charge.

The Celtic board took some abuse from Celtic fans close to them in the Main Stand. The stadium was almost empty and boos rang out around Celtic Park from the Celtic fans who had stayed till the end. Different season, different manager same type of night.

Martin O’ Neill and his backroom staff will have worked with squad members who were not on international duty before the rest of the players return from representing their nations.

Celtic are still top of the table but the confidence is with the rangers and after their shambles of a European campaign they will now have the luxury of no Thursday night games and will play more Saturday games than Celtic and we may be playing catch up on a Sunday which puts added pressure on the Celtic players who are in need of a confidence boost.

After the international break the rangers will have a chance of going top of the table when they play Kilmarnock at home on Saturday 10 October. Killie are bottom of the table and not many would bet against the rangers not being top of the table at the end of the day.

Celtic will travel to Motherwell the following day for a midday kick off which will be shown live on Sky Sports. The pressure will be on the Celtic players to put in a performance and get a win to keep that small gap between ourselves and the rangers at the top of the SPFL.

Andrew Milne is Editor of More than 90 Minutes Celtic Fanzine & Host of the Celtic Soul Podcast