The smugness of the Celtic board comes home to roost. £72 million in the bank and an insolvent club allowed to breathe down our necks

You kind of felt that Peter Lawwell and Michael Nicholson’s attempts at stand up comedy at Tuesday’s AGM might come home to roost.

It didn’t take very long for their hilarity to catch up on them.

By about 5pm yesterday evening, their comments looked very foolish indeed.

Celtic now sit 9 points ahead of the Ibrox side, but that creates something of a mirage, as our main title rivals now have two games in hand over us.

Considering the pasting we handed out to the Aberdeen side they’re playing today, I don’t hold out much hope of Barry Robson’s side doing us a favour this afternoon.

I expect the gap to be down to 6 points by this evening.

We have handed the Ibrox side an advantage I’m pretty sure they didn’t expect.

I sincerely doubt they will look this gift horse in the mouth.

I’m pretty sure if they needed any motivation to take advantage of Celtic’s toothless performance yesterday, both Peter Lawwell and Michael Nicholson have given it to them in spades.

Their smug attitude has come home to roost.

One of the best run clubs in the world?

You wouldn’t have thought it if you witnessed yesterday’s shambling performance against Motherwell.

We’re back to side to side passing with 80% possession, and no end product.

If the rest of the Scottish Premiership require a template on how to set up against us, both Hibernian and Motherwell have shown the way.

The epitome of anti-football is the way to do it.

And you know what’s worse?

We have a “world class” manager who can’t seem to break teams that set up like this down.

The question is, is that down to him, or is it down to the board?

Well, I’ll put it this way, what do you think would have happened yesterday if we had a striker like Giorgos Giakoumakis upfront?

We had 13 corners yesterday, and could not get on the end of one of them.

A striker like Giakoumakis would have achieved that much.

Motherwell had two corners, and scored from one of them.

Do you think if we had a better keeper than Joe Hart, who seemed to be doing an impression of the Birdie song when Motherwell scored, we would have won that game?

Well, we’ll never know, because our smug board feels that we are adequately resourced going into what is traditionally the toughest month of the season.

December is now looking like a month where the Ibrox side could be coming to Celtic Park only 3 points behind us.

And believe me, going off yesterday’s performance, that is very much best case scenario.

We have to go McDiarmid Park next Sunday and face a St. Johnstone side managed by Craig Levein.

Levein will look at Motherwell’s performance yesterday and set up to frustrate us once again.

Hibernian have to come to Celtic Park following that, and who would bet against them doing the same?

Then we have to return to Rugby Park to face a stubborn Kilmarnock side.

I don’t need to remind you of what happened the last time we were there.

Out of those 3 upcoming fixtures, can you honestly not see us dropping more points?

Based on yesterday’s performance, I would be very wary of those three fixtures.

But in reality, we shouldn’t even be in this position.

That we are, is testament to the fact that our board has once again failed the football operation.

We are now officially in a title race with a club that is trading whilst insolvent.

Yet again, on this board’s watch, this has been allowed to happen.

If their strategy is just to keep the Ibrox side at arm’s length, and make the Champions League group stages, then they are failing miserably at said strategy.

Yet, they can sit at the AGM and have a laugh and a joke about the whole thing, all whilst sneering at people who put serious questions to them.

All the back slapping in the world, and boasting about our wonderful bank balance, does not alter that fact.

£72 million is no good to anyone sitting in a bank account.

The Ibrox side barely have a pot to piss in financially, yet there they are, breathing down our necks once again.

But hey, Peter Lawwell says we are one of the best run clubs in the world.

A club who declares they have this kind of stature, should then show the fiscal responsibility expected of them, and question why their closest rivals are permitted to trade whilst insolvent.

The relationship between the board and the fans, taking into account current circumstances, is strained enough as it is.

If we come out of December sitting behind the Ibrox side, well, it will go from strained to all out contempt.

The Green Brigade made their opinions very clear outside Celtic Park yesterday.

They may not be in a position to make those opinions clear inside the stadium at the moment, but I don’t think they’ll be required to should things go south in December.

In the event of that happening, the board will be facing 60,000 extremely pissed off punters.

We’ll see how much of a laugh and a joke they’ll make of that scenario.

Because, after what we witnessed yesterday, there’s a very real prospect of that happening.

Brendan Rodgers says he’ll be bringing in the quality he requires in January, let’s just hope it’s not too late by then.

If the board does not step up in terms of signings in January, and we find ourselves behind the Ibrox side, well, that may just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

One way or another, December is going to be an interesting month.

Let’s hope it’s interesting for all the right reasons.