Tom English is on the money with his assessment of Celtic’s performance yesterday. I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be admitting that…
I can't argue with anything Tom English has to say in his BBC article, and that's a rare thing...
Eric Knott 
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - SEPTEMBER 13: Celtic's Callum McGregor looks dejected during a Premier Sports Cup Quarter-Final match between Rangers and Celtic at Ibrox Stadium, on September 13, 2026, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Usually, Tom English is gushing in his praise for the Ibrox side.
Usually, I can take one of his columns apart line by line without breaking sweat.
Not this morning.
I’ve now read his assessment of yesterday twice, and I cannot find a single thing in it to argue with.
Not one line.
And that is a sentence I genuinely never thought I would be typing…
Here is how he opened it:
“Fifty-five minutes into this Rangers romp at Ibrox, Martin O’Neill and Shaun Maloney stood beside each other in the Celtic technical area, chin-stroking, head-scratching, pointing, waving, drowning.”
Drowning.
That is the word, isn’t it?
Because that is exactly what it looked like from where I was sitting.
No matter what anybody writes about yesterday, Celtic do not come out of it with a shred of credit
Let’s get that out of the way early doors.
There is no angle to take here, no silver lining to go hunting for, and not even a referee to point the finger at for once.
We were beaten in every single department by a side that wanted it more.
Man for man, for the full ninety minutes.
That was, without question, the worst Celtic performance in a derby since December 2024 at Ibrox.
I’ve sat through a fair few bad ones down the years, and I’m telling you that one belongs in the very worst bracket of them all.
The mood was set inside four minutes, when Sam Johnstone passed a clearance straight to Kevin Kelsy.
Harried into it by a press that never let up all afternoon.
And we never recovered from that moment, did we?
We talk endlessly about learning lessons at Celtic, and Linz was the biggest one we’ve been handed in years
Remember Linz?
Of course you do.
We all watched a 4-0 lead evaporate against a side we were supposed to be streets ahead of, because they ran harder, pressed higher and wanted it more than we did.
That was three weeks ago.
Three weeks.
And yesterday, in so many ways, looked like a straight repeat of it.
Same passivity, same inability to handle a side that presses, and the same bewildered look on the faces of men who are paid very well indeed to know better than that.
We learned absolutely nothing from Linz.
Nothing at all.
Callum McGregor and the midfield were a no-contest against Dan Neil and Nico Raskin.
Camilo Duran, one of the players of the season so far, was bossed out of the game entirely by Olwethu Makhanya.
Kasper Høgh – our record signing, remember – spent the afternoon in Emmanuel Fernandez’s pocket with no service and no sniff.
Six of their starting eleven were making their Glasgow derby debut.
Six.
And not one of them looked remotely fazed by an occasion that is supposed to swallow young players whole.
What does that tell you about where we are?
When the man who never gives us credit gets it this right, you know exactly how bad it was
I’m not going soft on Tom English here.
He’ll be back to the usual service soon enough, and I’ll be back to picking holes in it.
But credit where it’s due.
He wrote that few of these games surprise you anymore, and that this one was a gobsmacker.
He’s right.
He wrote that total authority for an entire game is a rare thing in this fixture, and that usually the team in front has to weather a storm at some point.
Right again.
We couldn’t throw a bucket of water in their direction, never mind a tempest.
That’s his line, and I wish it wasn’t such a good one.
The smallest mercy in the whole miserable afternoon was that it stayed at three.
It should have been five, and everybody inside that ground knew it.
The domestic bliss era is under serious threat now, and Sunday will tell us whether it survives
This is the part that should worry every single one of us.
For years, the one thing we could fall back on was that whatever happened in Europe, we were untouchable at home.
That is no longer a given.
Derek McInnes has been looking for a marquee performance since he walked through that door, and now he has one.
He’s found a shape that works and players big enough to carry it out.
Make no mistake, he’ll have them believing they can do it again.
And they get to come to Celtic Park on Sunday to try.
Sixty thousand of our own, baying for a response, and a squad that has just been publicly stripped bare.
Is that the best possible set-up for a response, or the worst possible stage for a second collapse in a week?
I genuinely don’t know which yet.
What I do know is that Sunday is now the single most important game of our season so far.
Not because of the points, though they matter.
Because of what another afternoon like yesterday would do to this support, and to the standing of everyone at the top of our club.
We were told all summer that this squad was more than strong enough for everything in front of it.
We were told the business was done.
Yesterday was the bill arriving for all of it, and Sunday is the day we find out whether anybody at Celtic can pay it.
So no, I can’t dissect a word Tom English wrote.
He was on the money, and he didn’t even need to try.
I never thought I’d see the day…
Key Takeaways
- Tom English’s assessment of Celtic’s performance was unusually accurate, and it highlighted their failures.
- Celtic suffered a significant defeat, showing no improvement from past mistakes, particularly against Linz.
- The team struggled in all areas, with key players failing to make an impact during the match.
- Celtic now faces a crucial game at home, needing a strong response to avoid further decline.
- Saturday’s match is pivotal for the team’s morale and standing within the club.
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desperate times call for desperate measures and we all know the glaring weakness is not having a big cat prowling in front of the defence. It will be January at the earlies before we can bring anyone in so would it not be worth putting big Murray or even Ralston there to see how it goes . If we dont then , boy, we are gonna have some sleepless nights.
Every word that was written is totally true celtic are a team that are devoid of mental strenght and flexability should there be a repeat performance this coming sunday i would suggest that Martin and his backroom staff will be on the first train out of Glasgow
The one word that keeps appearing in all match reports is MEEK! It certainly showed, no fight, no hard tackling, nothing. We are as hard as soft ice cream. A scandalous situation for a team supposedly the country’s best. For all the shortcomings the coaching staff should still be able to format a team that makes us hard to break down but we persist in having a wide open midfield, nothing pragmatic about us, an idea of “Celtic Way” of football which no fan wants. Been said 1000 times the club needs gutted from top to bottom.
Dan Neil’s record prior to yesterday double was 12 goals in 217 games…… if that stat isn’t a huge wake up call to our coaching staff then nothing will, FFS play a holding midfielder id go wae Ox (till the window), as he’s the calmer influence.
HH
Our style of play ‘ works” ….when the opposition surrender possession and we can stroll forward at our leisure…But has MON and SM not noticed a subtle change that’s crept in…??…Some teams are now bringing the game to us…Getting in our faces…closing us down…stopping the build up from the back…How difficult can it be to spot that and so..we then revert to a system that suits the needs?…Well the sad truth is….Our Manager and Coach don’t have the ability to do that…But they’ll need to learn very fast.
MON did not get a midfielder to protect the defence, nor did he get one to supply our forwards, yet he is now getting the wrath of the Celtic support. Tounetki only played as Hassan had some kind of bad night the night before. This is all the boards fault, they probably have over £100m now and that is the squad we have. Absolutely disgraceful profiteering. MON has been hung out to dry just like Rodgers. MON doesn’t even have a “Honda Civic”
Celtic will really struggle to get the next manager, probably the reason they wanted MON for another season. We are in a complete mess and this board is going nowhere. Get angry if you wish but point that anger in the correct direction, the board!! Sack the board
Why can’t Celtic perform without fans with yesterday being another example? The COVID 19 Pandemic exposed the failings of players and team not being able to play without fans in attendance …badly ! Is it fear or loneliness ? Or maybe anxieties or isolation or being separated from the crowds ? Or just a plain old scared stiff of feeling vulnerable playing in front of other teams’ fans who shout and swear and scream a lot at them making them feel and look uncomfortable ? Whatever the reasons they should be big enough and man enough to take all of that in their strides and be inspired to play their best football rather than the opposite ! Use the opposition fans and lack of our fans in the crumbling Ibroxland stadium as inspiration . I Surely it’s not too deeply scientific to practice ?
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen and heard SMSM scoops in such a buoyant and incredibly upbeat mood as they were after yesterday’s result ? Man they were ecstatic but trying to look non- plused ! If the scoreline is reversed next Sunday with 60,000 Celtic fans and no theRangers fans inside Celtic Park playing in the league do you think the same scoops will afford Celtic the luxury of the identical smiley happy reporting as yesterday ? Did you see that big pink thing flying by up there at speed ? It looked like a pig !
Celtic should just try and keep the score respectable on Sunday. Phone Martindale to ask him for a bit of help. Pack the goals, hoof the ball out the park every opportunity, give them a world record of throw-ins, lie down while feigning injury, take turns at having a sh!te on the penalty spot. Just do not try and cross the halfway line.
Celtic haven`t looked anything like a team since opposing teams stopped parking
the double-deckers in front of them.
That performance yesterday was a disgrace, and that is the coaching staff I am
referring to.
I phoned and told my nephew that Celtic did great yesterday. He said, “I thought they were beaten”. I said, “oh they certainly were but it was still a brilliant result: it
should have been 10 nothing”.
When you look at the Celtic directors box and then at the dug-out, it reminds you of
the The Muppet Show without the hilarity.
I don’t and won’t purchase any Scummy rag but if The Scummy Scottish Football Media are giving big time to anyone at Celtic then they can bloody well take it as it’ll be well deserved !
I don’t understand why people are surprised or never noticed until recently Celtic can’t deal with a pressing team,it has been going on since Brendan ‘s Celtic played Falkirk in a cup game
Also Eric Sunday is all about the points not just revenge of bruised egos
Still refusing to see it, people still making excuses, some trying to absolve Martin and the coaches, others our disgrace of a board.
You do not get to run a team into the ground, dismantle a squad standing up to BAYERN MUNICH, and get no repercussions. The board have no interest in football, or for that matter Celtic. Martin and his staff were never fit to lead Celtic, and this was apparent to some of us since last season. Yet the prevailing narrative from a lot of fans has been that, the fight is won, the Collective can back off, the Board have done the business. I have never seen such a mealy mouthed, easily pleased, willfully blind group of people in my life.
I refer to the sizable chunk of our fans falling over themselves to absolve the board of any blame, to praise the board for a great window, and perhaps a little more understandably, praise such a wonderful appointment in Martin, even when the obvious flaws were , well , obvious. Our midfield, is not fit for purpose, our talismanic midfield leader far from talismanic for a long time now, yet we once again failed to strengthen as required. What has been done to our midfield is a disgrace, yet the happy clappers were actually debating the success of our signings in this area, laughable. Our defence is creaking and has been crying out for reinforcements, yet again a large section of the support was asking how good the ‘rebuild’ had been in this area!.
The squad has been deliberately weakened, another profit recorded, and a patsy installed to take the flak. One can only applaud the Fan Collective for sticking with it, continuing the fight in the face of such destruction, and blind fealty by a large section of our fans, who fall over themselves to absolve the board at every turn.
You reap what you sow.