He played on the left - He played on the right....

Football fans are routinely portrayed based upon their passion, hero worship, and unwavering support, however, what is often glossed over is their vast capacity to ignore statistics and facts that don’t suit their at times slanted views. Often happy to defame their own team’s players by applying labels and tags, they can be the main instigators behind negative media perceptions.

These labels show their 'fans' to be in the most part, pretty harsh judges. What often strikes me about the whole fan/player relationship is the way in which it can affect a player’s whole career and how they are perceived by not only by other fans, but also by the media and the football world in general.

Once a player is known as lazy, slow, overweight, a poor finisher/tackler/headerer/out of form [delete as appropriate], or even worse the ill fated 'bottler' then they can spend a whole career trying to shift the tag. Given their thirst for stories to fill their pages, once a tag has been banded about the terraces or phone-ins, the media are more than happy to jump on it and spend line after line putting said player on the doc with little or no evidence to back up their accusations. Not only does it fill spaces and set up repeat articles but it also seems to make everyone’s job easy. It becomes the basis for match analysis from the hordes of pundits, for newspapers match reports and player ratings, interviews, and an easy topic for the now endless number of ex-player columnists.

Aiden McGeady loads of talent, fast feet; but lacks the pace, application, and final ball to be a top top player.

Even looking back on his first couple of appearances back in 2003/04 I can recall Aiden outrun several defenders, always available for the ball and prepared to drive the team forward, and indeed lay on goals for his team mates. However the mere implication, backed up in written media would be enough to punish most players a player to a career imprisoned in the SPL with the Scottish Press happy to sit in the public gallery and look on in almost enjoyment.

However, young Aiden, not one to be put off by public perception, utilized the resources available at Celtic and trained hard alongside then fitness mogul GregORY DuPont, and seemed to magic not just an extra yard of pace, but several yards.

Aiden McGeady loads of talent, fast feet; but lacks the application and final ball to be a top top player.

Allied to his new found pace, Gordon Strachan’s system and style placed emphasis not only on Aiden’s attacking prowess but asked him to help out defensively. In order to keep his place in the team, that is exactly what the Celtic fans saw from the young Irish winger, Aiden’s work rate became inescapably part of his game. Between Strachan, DuPont, and McGeady himself, they had reinvented perception of McGeady as the ‘luxury’ player he had been accused of being in the past

Aiden McGeady loads of talent, fast feet, but lacks the final ball to be a top top player.

Aiden (and Nakamura on the opposite flank) became charged with the team’s creative responsibility as Gordon Strachan often opted for two defensive minded centre midfielders and no defenders really adept at stepping into the midfield with the ball. Far too often this left his Celtic team mates expecting miracles from McGeady, when he not only carried the ball 30-40 yards again and again, and was asked to hold possession till his less mobile colleagues made their way to support or go for goal alone. Luckily McGeady took this responsibility on his shoulders and wasn’t found criticising those around him, either on the pitch or in the papers, unlike many other prodigious talents in British football.

Whether he was stuck tight to the touchline or drifted inside it was often from McGeady’s trickery, pace, and skill that many of Scott McDonald or Vennegoor of Hesselink’s goals came from (including a McDonald hat trick V Motherwell where McGeady claimed three excellent assists). Since Aiden secured a regular starting berth; with the exception of the diminutive Scott McDonald, Celtic have played with centre forwards who played much of their game outside the opposition penalty, had he played more with the Larsson’s, Sutton’s, or Hartson’s of this world, I have no doubt at all that his assist levels would have been through the roof.


The reckless labels attributed to footballers often completely disprovable, and are not always negative, with Danny Fox, Edson Braafheid, and Shaun Maloney before them, tagged as set-piece 'specialists'. Granted Maloney has scored a couple of excellent free kicks for Celtic, they were now some time ago, and since his return from Villa he has remained a frequent free kick taker simply because he hasn’t shaken off his label which the stats most definitely disprove. Other classic examples in recent years as bought into by the Celtic fans are - Samaras being lazy (despite the fact he is as regularly found tracking back behind the midfield as he is in the opposition penalty box), Nakamura is a luxury player who Celtic can ill afford to have their players carry (clearly ignoring that even out with his goals and assists - he statically covered more ground on the pitch than any of his teammates), and Artur Boruc last season was overweight and off form (with such an inexperience and mistake laden defence in front of him he consistently kept us in games and made several outstanding saves).

The more you hear any of the above fallacies said, the more it almost becomes accepted as fact. In no way is this a unique phenomenon with Celtic’s fans and players or something that applies only in Scotland, this seems to be universal with football fans everywhere.

The example of this that strikes me every time I see him play is John Terry. Be it the fans, the papers, other managers, or pundits and analysts – we are force-fed the notion the John Terry is not only a great defender but that he is so because of his ‘commanding’ presence. Even opposition accept Terry’s reputation; by the expectation of his commanding presence seem to give him far too much respect and credit and allow him to win tackles, headers, and challenges at times without contest. However I find Terry ambles his way through games, kept right by his far more positionally astute colleagues Carvalho and Ivanovic, (and Ferdinand at International level) as he is dragged out of position and is beaten too easily by often pretty average strikers who have the audacity not to buy into Terry’s fraud.

With McGeady being on the opposite end of the spectrum to Terry in terms of the now media driven views on the negative side of his game, Aiden has fought his own case so well over the past few years that he would certainly be found not guilty off all three charges (pace, work rate, and final ball) if all the evidence was fairly weighed up. The determination he has shown to do this however has even been thrown at the mercurial Irishman as a criticism. Whether down to such individuality as a player ability or his refusal to be bow to the easy decisions, his determination is often spoken of as a unconstructive stubbornness and defiance, and it is true he and former manager Gordon Strachan had their run ins, but looking outside in, McGeady did seem to be treated harshly by Strachan.

I have even read comment in a newspaper about Mowbray mentioning that McGeady was not the cleverest of chaps. This as well as being ludicrously irrelevant to his on pitch activities at Celtic, is quite far from the truth. A straight ‘A’ student until he left school for full time football had even cited Law as an alternative profession had he not made it in the game. In this intelligence and determination he is set aside from the majority of footballers, and on which he will have to utilise to succeed abroad in the Champions League team of Spartak Moscow.

There are those who questioned whether McGeady would have elected for the move to Russia and who now question his mentality to succeed, and while the former shows the young man to be strong willed and brave, only he can go on to prove the latter.

Fitter, Happier, More Productive

The improvement in Celtic since last season, even since the opening games against Braga cannot be overstated. Three consecutive clean sheets must have brought Neil Lennon as much hope for the future as his now double figure SPL winning streak. Although it is defensively that Neil will be relying on Celtic to perform to their best tonight, it is no the only area in which Lennon's Celtic have made dramatic steps forward.

I have seen more signs of a "stronger, fitter, faster, younger" team than I ever did under Strachan, and more "open, expansive, free flowing" football than under Mowbray. Lennon promised was that he was going to bring back the intangible thunder, whereas his predecessors promised more tangible things that in truth they didn’t come close to delivering in full.

Whilst having so many players comfortable on the ball with a mobility and fluency that have long eluded those in green and white hoops, it was interesting to hear the manager talk this week that he is likely to set up very differently whether we are playing at home, away in the SPL, or in European competition. Lennon will no doubt believe their is finally a system and personnel suited to playing on the counter attack for first time since Celtic's last lengthy run in Europe's second highest competition. Not only are there good attacking outlets so possession can be used well and sensibly to stave off the pressure for spells in the game, but also players with real top level pace.

With Samaras, Fortune, Brown, Juarez, Cha, Kayal, Maloney, Forrest with McGinn and Hooper to come back from injury this may well be the quickest Celtic team in living memory. And while realistically, this team may never become the juggernaught that overpowered team after team like O'Neill's could, smart money could be placed that it could eventually play even better football than their counterparts of a decade ago did.

And lets not be mistaken by the long and direct football it was said Celtic played then. That team played excellent football. The interchanging of passes and positions, the variation of goals and scorers, the touches, the flicks, the nutmegs, the stepovers, the short passing, the long passing, the freekicks, the volleys, the overhead kicks - they were all in there. The facts show that regardless of who wanted to ignore it.

We might just see all that again.

Love Lenny Love Celtic

A Wee Story

Neil Francis Lennon looked up to see the brightness of the sun obscuring his view to the large automated scoreboard, held aloft by the sold out 62,000 seated Celtic Park and pondered whether this is how Martin O’Neil had felt when Celtic defeated St Mirren to win the SPL back in 2001. He could see the date – the 16th of April 2011 but not much more. It was one of those rare summer days in the East End of Glasgow when the sun splits the sky and everything just looks better, the grass look greener, the sky bluer, and the football looks sharper and faster.

Even though he sensed Alan and Johan beside him, desperate to race onto the pitch and celebrate with the players, a numbness had overtaken his body. This was not a numbness he had felt before, he had battled that demon. This was more like an outer-body experience, as if his pride seemed to take him to a new level, he felt the joy everyone else did, but seem paralysed by it.

Pat McCourt stands almost absolutely static for half an hour after a mazy dribble or a wonder goal, maybe he feels this too, I’ll ask him later Neil decided.

At first he had thought it had been the Guinness from last night, after all, he hadn’t been in Tennents bar all season, well just about, (far less than the past few years anyway), and last nights tipple with the boys that had come up for the game had hit him hard. And indeed left him more than a tad hazy this morning – It was fine he had judged, that the team knew what they were doing by now anyway, an unchanged side were starting for the fifth game in a row and this had an almost robotic effect on their ever increasing winning streak.

Breathing new life into failing Celtic squads in dire need and showing them near instant success was certainly not all they had in common. The Northern Irish midfielders had been hard workers in successful teams, and not always entirely appreciated in all quarters, but had learned from top managers, with O’Neil’s lessons from Clough passed onto to Lennon and his team-mates in those heady Celtic days a decade ago.

Gaining much experience and know-how from his mentor Martin O’Neill, Lennon himself knew he also drew from Gordon Strachan’s tenure. The way he refused to let his team be characterised by his opening European defeat, Neil thought, that is exactly what I want after Braga.

That night, he felt alone with the level of confidence he had in himself, in those players, in this team – to gel together and bring success. Not only success in terms of recapturing the league, he wanted this team to thrive, his team, to kick on and show the grit, determination and indefatigability (that although he played down occasionally, he was enormously proud) that he was know for in his playing days. Had Gary Hooper played that night we would definitely have got a goal or two over there he would regularly concede in private, and definitely changed at least the complexion of that tie.

After Hooper’s 32 goals, including today’s brace, it would be hard to argue with Lennon’s assertion; the lively striker certainly had given Celtic’s attacking force a new and more potent dynamic this season.

A sharp learning curve he continuously assured himself that the first two matches were, were viewed not only by the management team, but now anyone else who cared to consider it, as a mere blip in the process of building a team, with new players, new manager, and ultimately a new formation and playing style. Thankfully they had not been an indicator of where the team were going, or any real long-term problems that Lennon would not be able to remedy.

A scarce cloud had now briefly blocked the sun allowing Neil to confirm to himself that the inevitable could not be delayed for much longer.

It read -

CELTIC 2 HIBS 0

And the clock in the corner showed that the game was entering its 93rd minute –
It wasn’t the Guinness, it wasn’t even the pride, it was the fear of failure that was slowly lifting from Lennon, he had proved to everyone, himself included, that he was cut out for football management, he had showed a talent (allied to his heart and spirit) that he wished he had been recognized for as a footballer. But that didn’t matter now. Like Martin had added Clough’s ruthlessness to his own considered approach, Neil had succeeded in at last parading his measured and intelligent side that was backed up by his ubiquitous bullishness, rather than being tarnished by it.

As he forced himself to reality, he instead let his emotions guide his actions rather than his usually careful almost paranoid thought process, as Lennon realising by now that the whistle had gone several seconds ago, ran to the far side of the pitch, grabbed Scott Brown in a headlock, and dragged the Celtic captain to a now rapturous Celtic support.

Glasgow Celtic Champions 2010/2011