These are the sort of stumbles that cost Old Firm teams Premier League titles, and cost Old Firm managers their jobs. Tony Mowbray probably knew it, too, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, as the weary-looking Celtic manager came forth to explain away yet another setback for his team after this draw with Falkirk on Saturday.
Eddie May’s team were a lot of things: defiant, skilful, robust in defence, and with a towering striker, Enoch Showunmi, reeking an occasional havoc up front on his debut. Yet Celtic should still have won this match. The complication is, they did not deserve to win it on chances created — absolutely not — but on their sheer beavering industry which saw them agitate around Robert Olejnik’s penalty box without being able to force the Falkirk goalkeeper into any save of note.
That is the worrying thing for Mowbray. This team of his, whatever its other qualities, is currently as blunt as an old meat cleaver. And, even more, when Aiden McGeady suffers the sort of private nightmare he did on Saturday, forever sprinting up blind alleys and losing his way, then Celtic are sorely depleted. There is much exaggerated talk of McGeady’s ability, but he is still the club’s best player, and Celtic cannot afford him to have too many off-days like this.
Mowbray’s problem is sounding both repetitive and hollow. In fact, sometimes his words ring alarm bells for any Celtic fan who is listening in on the wireless or reading him in the newspapers. Ten years ago John Barnes had a habit of waxing on about how his Celtic team were on their way, were on the brink of coming good, before the Englishman bit the dust after one failure too many.
No one is saying Mowbray is staring the sack in the face, but there is a faint resonance of that Barnes episode in some of his words. “We’re not far away from being a team that can win consistently,” Mowbray claimed on Saturday night. “We are in decent shape. Somewhere along the line we are going to score a lot of goals.”
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These are hopeful, optimistic words that will also only haunt some Celtic supporters. For some, to quote the poet, Stevie Smith, they depict a man who is not waving, but drowning.
Having said that, it was a weird Celtic team which took the field on Saturday — and, heaven helps us, surely not Mowbray’s ideal team. Lee Naylor, an infuriation of a left-back, was there instead of Danny Fox, who was injured. Stephen McManus lasted scarcely half an hour before also going off injured, to be replaced by Josh Thomson, an 18-year-old whom Celtic signed from Stockport County. Beside Thomson was Darren O’Dea, back from an unsuccessful loan spell at Reading, and as unimposing as ever, being brushed off the ball by Carl Finnigan for Falkirk’s goal.
Then there was Zheng Zhi, a talented Chinese footballer whose Celtic career has yet to start, playing out on the left. McGeady, meanwhile, played a strange role, free to roam but mainly employed centrally between Georgios Samaras and Marc-Antoine Fortun?, the latter proving as unfamiliar as ever with finding the net. All told, what a Celtic concoction it was.
For Mowbray, the one bright ray was the debut of Ki Sung Yueng, the club’s recently-purchased £1.8 million South Korean. In truth, one haphazard 90 minutes is no evidence upon which to be making emphatic judgments about anyone, but he still looked classy, spraying passes around and delivering a series of deliciously-executed shots or crosses towards the Falkirk goal.
For what it is worth — and this counts for something in Scotland — the Korean also had an endearing habit of being prepared to get “stuck in”, which, if all else fails him, will at least preserve his career in this country. May it be cautiously noted that this was a very impressive Celtic debut.
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It took a typical Samaras run and shot past Olejnik after 40 minutes to cancel out Finnigan’s opportunist strike for Falkirk 20 minutes earlier, but Celtic’s miscues and woeful final deliveries were quite an abundance.
Andreas Hinkel, a likeable German who is foolish enough to give the media the time of day, havered afterwards about “strange” refereeing decisions which he claimed were thwarting Celtic’s progress under Mowbray.
Hinkel duly referred to this and that inconsequential decision by Alan Muir in the match, though strangely, did not include among them the controversy of Celtic’s late penalty claim among his gripes. Brian McLean got too close to Fortun? and may or may not have hauled him down inside the box. Muir, at any rate, dismissed Celtic’s claims.
May was gracious enough later to admit that he thought it was a penalty for Celtic — a claim that McLean himself denounced as nonsense. May, though, had good reason to be cheerful. His team are still anchored to the foot of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League but Colin Healy, the Ireland international, had an eye-catching debut, and Falkirk showed plenty of evidence that they can survive. It left their manager fairly chirruping.
“There has been a big shift in mentality and quality in my team recently,” May said. “We’ve got more toughness about us. They used to say we were like an under-21 team, but not any more.
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“We’ve got better competition now. On the bench today I had Pedro Moutinho, Jackie McNamara, Lee Bullen, Burton O’Brien. I’ve now got options to go and put good quality on the park, which we’ve never had all season.
“This was a big point for us. We’re still bottom of the league, but with this quality and commitment, now we’ve got an opportunity. I think we’ve got a chance to get off the bottom. The second half of the season should be much better for us.”
Now, for Mowbray, comes a nervy Active Nation Scottish Cup fourth-round tie against Morton in Greenock tomorrow night. Just don’t mention Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
Celtic (4-3-1-2): A Boruc 5 A Hinkel5 S McManus 3 D O’Dea 4 L Naylor 4 M Crosas 7 Ki S Y 8 Z Zhi 6 A McGeady 5 M-A Fortun? 5 G Samaras 6. Substitutes: J Thompson 6 (for McManus, 30min), N McGinn (for Crosas, 65), P McCourt (for Hinkel, 75). Not used: L Zaluska, P McGowan, J Forrest, K Mizuno.
Falkirk (4-4-2): R Olejnik 5 D Barr 5 Pele 7 M Twaddle 7 B McLean 7 R Flynn 5 C Healy 7 V Lima 6 S Arfield 6 E Showunmi 6 C Finnigan 6. Substitutes: P Moutinho 5 (for Finnigan, 57min), J Compton 4 (for Flynn, 67), L Bullen 4 (for Showunmi, 69). Not used: M Andrews, J McNamara, B O’Brien, S Murdoch.
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Referee: A Muir. Attendance: 50,000.