Football Season Guide

Celtic scraped over the line to another title last season, requiring a series of fortunate refereeing decisions and a late win at home against challengers Hearts to finally claim the crown. It was a achieved despite multiple changes in manager, with the board finally settling on Martin O’Neill to come in and do a firefighting job. O’Neill got Celtic playing winning football, but there was little style in the way it was achieved, while the board were heavily criticised for poor business in the transfer business. As the new season looms, the Hoops face similar criticism, such that there has already been a boycott of friendly matches from fans groups. Animosity between the board and the support is likely to be a backdrop for much of what happens with the Hoops this season. Certainly, their transfer window has been woeful at the time of writing. The only signing they have made is Colombia striker Camilo Duran from Qarabag, and while this appears to be a promising deal that should solve a big problem from last season, the club’s inactivity has been alarming. Numerous issues need addressed still. A regular goalkeeper is required while there is a lack of depth in the centre-back role and in attack. Last season, there was a seriously limited attacking threat, which remains a concern ahead of this season, particularly due to a lack of creativity in the midfield that often made Celtic predictable and easy to defend against. O’Neill is not a tactical innovator so will not change his approach to the team. This should be seen as a source of concern as it will likely leave the Hoops relying on sheer weight of pressure to win games. This is effective domestically but when they go into Europe – where the fans have real ambitions for the team to go deep – they will be found lacking quality, even if they drop into the Europa League. Clearly this is still a team in the process of being built, but at the time of writing in the second half of July, there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done to reconstruct this side.