The one thing that haunts all Celtic fans came home to roost at Hampden yesterday…complacency
Eric Knott 
(Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
The definition of Complacency:
A feeling of smug and uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievements.
There were photographs taken of the Celtic board yesterday at Hampden Park in the aftermath of our shock loss to Aberdeen.
Some of them look stunned, some of them looked like it was all a great laugh.
But make no mistake, they played their part in all of what unfolded yesterday.
Their complacency since last January led us to where we found ourselves by around 5 o’clock yesterday evening.
I’ve taken some time myself to reflect on yesterday’s events, and I have to say I have a lot of mixed emotions.
Am I angry?
I am, but I’ll get to the reasons for that anger a bit later on.
Firstly, I want to congratulate Aberdeen on their achievement yesterday.
You tend to forget as a Celtic fan in the midst of winning trophy after trophy, that there are clubs who do not get to experience very often what we sometimes take for granted.
Aberdeen had to wait 35 years for a moment like yesterday, and looking at the scenes in the aftermath of the penalty shoot out, you could see what it meant to them and their fans.
I don’t begrudge them that.
How could I?
I know they did it at our expense, and I’ll get to just how expensive it might be soon enough, but I will not deny that I clearly understood what it meant to them.
Did they deserve to win it?
Well, if I was to look at it through my green tinted Celtic specs, I’d say no, they did not.
They contributed absolutely nothing to the game until the last 7 minutes, when they came to life after Kaspar Schmeichel’s monumental blunder.
That turned the game, and it gave them the shot in the arm they needed to take the game to us.
We gave them that shot in the arm, because up to that point, they’d barely had a shot on target.
Whenever I look back on that own goal in the future, I will never understand why Kasper Schmeichel didn’t just palm it away with both hands.
He dived, and nonchalantly tried to tip it away with one hand, and you saw the end result.
You could say it was down to the fact he had nothing to do all game.
And you could say he was complacent because he had nothing to do all game.
Dimitar Mitov, on the other hand, had plenty to do throughout the game, and as a result his senses and his alertness were going to be higher going into the penalty shoot-out.
I said this to my mates at the game before the penalty shoot-out began.
But there is no point in dwelling on the what if’s, and the why’s, and the wherewithal of it.
It is what it is, the Scottish Cup is in the granite city today, and they will celebrate like you’d expect a city that hasn’t seen a trophy in 35 years to celebrate tonight.
And long into next week, I’m sure.
Celtic fans, in the meantime, have to reflect on what could have been.
Listen, I get that we can’t win them all, all of the time.
I get that.
But it was the manner in which we lost yesterday that got to me most.
I’d say something if it had been an epic Cup final, one for the ages, but it was the furthest thing from that.
We just did not have that killer blow in us.
We completely lacked the ability to put the game to bed, and as it wore on at 1-0, a niggling feeling crept in that something could go wrong.
And it did.
You’re never safe at 1-0, it’s always on a knife-edge.
But at the same time, you couldn’t see where Aberdeen would get a goal from, they had shown us nothing up until the own goal.
Celtic’s football was pedestrian, slow, and at times, would make you want to tear your hair out.
I’m sure I’m probably correct when I say that Liam Scales was probably the player with the most touches throughout the game.
That doesn’t exactly paint a very good picture, does it?
Is Liam Scales the best we have when it comes to building the attacking phases in our play?
At one point during extra-time, it looked as if we were doing things in slow motion.
Aberdeen might not have had the ability to create any meaningful attacks of their own, but they sure as hell knew how to contain us.
It looked like it was second nature to them in extra time.
And you just knew it was going to take something special to break them down.
Jeffrey Schlupp almost created that special moment when he rattled the cross bar with a wonderful effort from distance.
But when that one crashed off the bar, I just got that feeling it wasn’t going to be our day.
I knew for certain it wasn’t going to be our day if it went to a penalty shoot-out.
Mitov was brimful of confidence due to the fact he had been stopping almost everything thrown at him throughout the contest.
Schmeichel, on the other hand, had to have been rattled after his blunder.
Yang was chronic on the wing after he came on, up to the point that he even had the manager tearing his hair out.
We just did not seem to have that game changing player.
Combine that with the fact Rodgers will not change his tactics, and insists on this slow pedestrian build up play, as extra-time wore on Aberdeen became more and more comfortable.
Reo Hatate and Felipe Jota were sorely missed.
Reo Hatate might have had a quiet a game, but as we know, he always has one or two killer passes in him.
One or two of those might have been the difference.
The fact that Aberdeen put Hatate out of action is what makes that all the more harder to swallow.
Jota would also have had a trick or two in his locker, so he was a big miss too.
Dare I say it, if we still had Kyogo Furuhashi, the game could have been out of sight for Aberdeen very early on, as he was the kind of player who thrived in scenarios like yesterday’s.
The sale of our star striker benefitted only one party, our board.
It has not benefitted the player, and it most definitely did not benefit the team.
The complacency that snuck in last January came home to roost yesterday at Hampden Park.
And now, going into the new season, we are left with two huge concerns.
Firstly, is Brendan Rodgers going to adapt his tactics to meet the demands of the Scottish game?
Because every club now knows exactly how to counter them.
Or is he stubbornly going to persist with the same approach next season?
If he does, then we are going to be pushed all the way in every competition we partake in.
Secondly, are the board going to support the manager and supply him with the players he requires to take our squad to the next level?
Or is their complacency, which is now a major issue once again, going to result in us having another ridiculously frustrating summer transfer window?
I have no confidence in this board’s ability to take our club forward any more.
Nothing is going to change while the club is under their control.
They are complacent to the point of arrogance.
They believe they are geniuses and that their decision making is always the best for Celtic.
Yesterday proved that it is not.
Had we won that game yesterday, we would have been heading into the summer feeling positive.
Right now, I don’t feel positive.
I’m worried about what might come down the line.
If ever there was a time for this club and the manager to change their modus operandi, this is it.
We either stand still, or we push on.
The crime in all of this is that we have the ability to be out of sight.
Both financially, and managerially.
We were beaten by Aberdeen yesterday because of the choices we’ve made as a club in the last six months.
The one thing that haunts all Celtic fans came home to roost yesterday.
Complacency.
Let’s hope the choices we make in the next two months count.
Otherwise, we could be looking at a long hard season in 2025/26.
Celtic can no longer afford to be complacent.
If yesterday proved anything, it proved those days are well and truly over.
Listening to Rodgers yesterday post match he said it was to slow and in order to break down a low block you need to pass the ball quickly , move and create 1 v 1s , be brave against your man so it appears Rodgers doesn’t ask them to play this slow build up , it is intact the players who are playing this way . A few times this season he has came out and said this so it is a bit concerning how many times the message is not getting to the team .
Total complacency from the players, no one brave enough to break the lines and play the risky but the creative option. Not 1 player in our squad was brave on ball and the players looked as if it’s OK it’ll happen, but the complacency also came from our support, to many younger fans think it’s a given and when we do lose a big game the reaction is well over the top (imo). The atmosphere was dreadful as if fans had taken a win for granted HH.
Yesterday’s result changes nothing manager already knows what we need to progress. Players will defo come in (4 or 5) and players will go and don’t be surprised if a couple of big players go for a few quid HH.
Brendan Rodgers is an Elite Football Coach and an avid student of successful man and business management.Give him the investment and resources and quality he needs to develop the team and the business will grow and revenues and profits will increase. In the meantime he works with what he has and is too professional to admit the shortcomings of the Senior Management and the lack of Quality he has to deal with both on the football side and in the organisation and the lack of respect he is so obviously treated with by his Seniors. The next Celtic Coach will not be to the level of Brendan Rodgers but will be to the level of the current Management of the Business and will be of the standard they will choose and accept. There may be no more trebles on the horizon for some considerable time or under this ownership.
Couldn’t agree more with the last person. The board are as responsible for yesterday’s defeat as Rodgers and the team were. Some IMHO had already gone on holiday. I can only hope that Rodgers and the team learn from this and the immortal words of Jock Stein ” Every team should be respected. In the end it’s only 11 men versus 11 men. You have to win the game on the park.”
I said this on James’s blog Eric, and now I will say it on your’s. We will get nowhere as long as Lawwell is at Celtic park in any capacity. We have to do something, maybe the Green Brigade can help.
We have to get Lawwell of Celtic park. He has already cost us the ten. It is obvious he is still pulling the strings. Has the invisible man got nothing to say about this? What does he contribute?
Spot on Eddie, the arrogance of our Board is what breeds the complacency. The sale of Kyogo is the perfect example of this. Whether the player wanted away or not he was under contract and could and should have been retained till this summer.
But to sanction his sale and then not find a replacement striker during the same window with one more round of Champagne League games and possible advancement to the latter stages meant one of two things either they felt we had reached our ‘glass ceiling ‘ and job done, money banked or they felt with their considerable knowledge(sic) of the Game that we had enough in the ‘tank’ to battle on.
They displayed either lack of Sporting ambition, we are a Football Club after all, or they overestimate their ability to gauge the ability and reliable depth in the squad to compete at that level.
When I say the Board I’m of course referring to Lawwell, he never left the building and Nicholson is just an overpaid but pliable ‘glove puppet’. The Chairman’s maxim and M.O. has been and always will be in relation to the other side of the City, ‘just a little bit ahead and no more ahead’ of the The Tribute Act and budgets accordingly. Or so he smugly thinks. He and coterie of hand picked sycophants in the Boardroom have been found out but don’t expect any profound ‘ mea culpas’ or change of strategy.
They will, as is usual, just dismiss the criticisms of the fans and label us as ungrateful and entitled and continue on their chosen path into the Summer Transfer window. Expect numerous sales of leading players without suitable replacements. They know with their eyes across town that even if, and it’s still a big if, if the Takeover / Fakeover goes ahead then radical austerity is their lot for the foreseeable future. Consequently our Board will see no need to sanction the funds needed to improve our Squad.
Maybe some complacency all round…from the board,manager,players and fans alike,Eric.
On the game itself,it was obvious from very early on that we were dragging our arse,and actually looked edgy…in particular Liam Scales. His heavy touches and inability to control short pass and move it on without 2-3 touches is nothing short of disgraceful. He’s done his turn for us…time for him to go now. His hesitancy is disturbing. There’s a few I’d be quite relaxed,maybe even relieved,to see on their way this summer.
Scales,Trusty,Kuhn,Idah and probably Yang as well. A couple not up to par,a couple look like they’ve checked out already,and i believe a few of them are sulkers with the crap attitude that stinks the place out.
Even though he’d never come out and say it,i believe Calmac knows it. In the Huddle yesterday,there should have been no need for him to be giving a rousing speech like he did. I called that out as i watched it and it worried me. Firm and calm words to focus the mind on the job at hand i can understand,but a rousing ‘wake up call’….like a motivational speech,in a Cup Final going for a treble? We have issues.
That was abject yesterday and lack of joy and passion on scoring our goal was surreal and quite disturbing.
I don’t know how tough Brendan can be with the players day to day,but i think he now has to be ruthless with more than a few…or he won’t last much longer either.
This is NOT a kneejerk overreaction to a defeat…it’s a considered opinion over a fair period of time. Rather than just complacent,i prefer STALE, (but profitable) and therein lies the problem.
Apologies for the long-winded comment…my tuppence worth ran into 50 quids worth. 🫣
2out of 3 not bad especially when the other one went to some other team than that lot would take that every year.
We finished the game with our left back in CM,having taken off millions of pounds worth of players,as well as these players not turning up yesterday the replacements are Aberdeen standard, simply not good enough
‘ There were photographs taken of the Celtic board yesterday at Hampden Park in the aftermath of our shock loss to Aberdeen.’
Where can we find these images, Eric?
I’d like to compare them to Lawwell & Desmond’s faces tripping them after a few of our victories there in recent years.
Thanks in advance, HH
Try Joe McHugh’s article from this morning. You’ll find them there.
Listen, Rodgers, Calmac and all the others are to blame. Ibrox humiliated 3-0, Celtic Park behind 2-0 got it 2-2 and then we start pussy footing about , we had the momentum, they run up the park 2-3. Ibrox, we should have won it 1-1. Hibs at Easter Road 2-1. St Johnstone 1-0 St Mirren 1-1. All the while Brendan and Calmac are saying we need to do better, we know what we have to do, and they did not do it. These losses and performances since January were all Red flags, we keep the same tactics, refusing to change. Other managers know how to play against us now have done for a wee while. This constant recycling of the ball is so, so boring to watch. Brendan and the players are to blame no one else. That yesterday was abysmal. Just shocking. Brendan can Foxtrot Oscar with his big picture. Signs were all there, and ignored.
Thanks, Eric, but I can’t view Joe’s site as the owners, Admiral, insist that I accept 1858 unknown companies tracking me via cookies, which is just beyond unacceptable, with no option to opt out.
It must cost Joe thousand of readers, which is a real shame.
Thanks anyway, HH
Do it via Celtic News Now, I don’t think you’ll run into that problem there.
Rodgers sets the team up, their is no need for a huddle, it does nothing.
Rodgers does same boring tactics wherever he goes.
Would you take your lad to play football then stand in the car park kicking the ball back and eh back to each other.
Rodgers has his favourites, why was Sinisalo dropped, he came in and was getting better.
Where is the fault on signing players, Scouting team, Heirarchy ignoring them and signing flops?
I’d dump Rodgers, along with the coaches, the negativity in our play is brutal.
I’d probably disband th costing system, it’s not working or Lawell is definitely ignoring it an signing the flops.
The team deterioration started last season and has taken a nosedive on several occasions this season, sadly we are now quiet at matches, the noise has gone, I can hear the opposition more than our own.
We need changes.
Fair play to Aberdeen, parked a few buses and we did not know how to get past them.
Hil Hail for next year.
Thanks again, Eric, you’re a patient and kind man, but unfortunately the CelticNewsNow site just redirects to Video Celts and the same compulsory cookies ad appears.
If you do come across the photos anywhere could you publish them here, if possible, as this Admiral thing with its nearly 2000 companies invading our private space is beyond outrageous.
All the best to you & yours
Hail Hail!
The time for change had arrived some months ago when our rivals sussed us out. Along with st Johnstone and another few abject performances, Brendan R should have already been making plans then. If he hasn’t, then this is a massive dereliction of duty. The final completely changed when Forrest had to go off. He was our only “out” and the only player who looked capable of taking someone on and creating things. As for wang, I think the final is his final appearance in a Celtic shirt. I’ve never seen a Celtic winger go back the way as much as he does. He never got passed his man once!. The rest are obvious too. Taylor, scales, trusty, Ralston,Bernardo,bain ( remember him), should all be told their time at Celtic is over.
There’s a massive rebuild to be done, and we’re fortunate those across the city are slower than a week in the jail at getting their house in order. BR needs to adopt another system. Teams know how to stop us playing. We got what we deserved from the final. I wish I could say the same re Aberdeen. Their approach was negative until Casper’s disaster. If ever a final was fodder for our friends in England, who constantly belittle our game, this was it
Defeat to a team the level of Aberdeen cannot be the boards fault. Only Rodgers can take the blame. A few implying the players are not following his instructions, well that tells a big story. He really isn’t as great as many think.
Fergus Isle, use the “Brave” internet browser and make it your default browser, no pop ups or ads!!!
Thanks, Dan, great tip that’s worked a treat!
Hail Hail