‘Chaos ball’ – Are Celtic’s players being punished for being honest about Martin O’Neill’s tactics?

Cameron Carter-Vickers described the way we play under Martin O’Neill as ‘random’, and it seems he’s been on the sidelines ever since.

Now Callum McGregor has gone one better and likened the way we play to a basketball team.

He’s not far wrong.

But will he get the same treatment as CCV?

In the modern game, a player should be allowed to say something isn’t working.

That’s not mutiny, it’s honesty.

Granted, Martin O’Neill would probably prefer comments like that to be voiced behind closed doors.

I get that, every manager does.

Then again, we’re not talking about a player slagging off the gaffer on social media.

We’re talking about a player being asked a straight question and giving a straight answer.

If we’re being honest, CCV didn’t really know the answer to the question he was asked that day.

So he gave the best answer he could.

Random.

That’s how it felt to him, what he was being asked to do on the pitch.

And who are we to say he was wrong?

Now, I should say that the Daily Record’s Michael Gannon points out that the big man has been dealing with an injury, and he doesn’t buy the idea that CCV has been frozen out.

Fair enough, maybe he’s right.

But you’ll forgive supporters for joining the dots when a player calls it ‘random’ and then disappears from the team sheet.

What is concerning is that McGregor has gone into a lot more detail than CCV ever did.

Here is what the skipper said after the Dundee United game, as reported by the Daily Record:

It’s not really having a nailed-on profile for each of the positions.

The players behave like a winger, or they behave like a striker.

You can get away with it for a few games but if it’s a striker playing as a winger, you are going to get that behaviour a lot of the time.

We have to try to get the team functioning the way it should.

Then that will alleviate all the other problems that we are encountering, where it becomes a bit basketball, you lose control and spend the next 15 minutes trying to get possession back.

Read that again.

Strikers playing as wingers.

Players without a nailed-on profile for their position.

A team that loses control and then wastes energy trying to get the ball back.

That’s not a captain being vague, that’s a captain describing exactly what we’ve all been watching.

And it doesn’t sound much like a team that’s in the shape the manager thinks it’s in.

It once again shows a disconnect between the coaching team and the players, most notably the captain.

Make no mistake, that is a serious cause for concern for Celtic supporters right now.

Callum McGregor is the best communicator in that dressing room.

He’s not given to throwing people under the bus, and he’s not one for an emotional outburst either.

So when he talks about a lack of control, and about the team learning ‘on the job’, you listen.

Because if the man wearing the armband can see the problem this clearly, why can’t the people picking the team?

After the Dundee United game, the captain was describing a team that wasted 45 minutes of football in the first half.

In his own words, ‘we don’t do things properly and the shape of the team isn’t right’.

That’s not a minor quibble about a point dropped.

It’s a captain telling you the shape of the side was wrong for the best part of an hour.

And that’s the bit that bothers me most.

We’ve been here before with this captain, remember.

Back in the summer, O’Neill was asked about McGregor’s quotes towards the end of last season, about staying if the club matched his ambition.

His answer was that the words had been taken out of context.

They hadn’t been.

He even joked that his old gaffer Brian Clough would have hit the roof in similar circumstances.

Funny, that.

When the captain speaks plainly, the manager’s first instinct is to say it’s been misread.

I don’t think McGregor will be sent to Siberia, but I’d love to know what would happen if he was.

Gannon, who was in the Parkhead press room on Wednesday, reckons it was ‘measured, not emotional’, and that there’s no chance the captain gets dragged over the coals for calling it like it is.

I’d be surprised too.

He’s too important, and he’s too measured.

Even so, it’ll be interesting to hear how the manager handles the question when he faces the media ahead of Falkirk.

Will he play it down?

Of course he will.

He’ll tell us it’s all been taken out of context, and that everything is fine and dandy.

But playing it down doesn’t fix a team with square pegs in round holes.

That’s up to the manager and his coaches, and they need to start listening to the one man who has told them what’s wrong.

In fact, the board brought in the new faces, and the manager is left trying to make the pieces fit.

Of course, that’s a thought for another day.

Because the trip to Falkirk is no gimme.

Is a basketball style of play going to suit us there?

Your guess is as good as mine…

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