It has been fascinating listening to Jos Hooiveld, Celtic’s new Dutch centre-back, this week. In case you are confused, this isn’t Franz Beckenbauer, or even the comedian, Frank Carson, who has just breezed into the Celtic training camp at Lennoxtown, though Hooiveld’s highly vocal sense of his own self-worth has been quite something.
Already I can sense the nostrils of my tabloid colleagues twitching joyfully at this 26-year-old’s arrival in Scotland. Hooiveld cannot help blethering, adding splashes of colour to his stories, quite a few of which are tall tales, but hey, what does it matter? This Dutch misfit has done the rounds in the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Sweden before arriving like the cat that got the cream at Celtic from AIK Stockholm. I sense a one-man epic unfolding in front of us at Celtic.
The only trifling issue which is still to be resolved is, is Hooiveld any good? Celtic have an inglorious record of signing dud centre-backs, from Olivier “Bombscare” Tebily to Rafael Scheidt. On the very night that the last of these characters rolled up to Celtic Park I happened to be with Allan MacDonald, at the time the Celtic chief executive, and I said to him: “Alan, listen, there are big, strong centre-halves all over Europe, from Scandinavia to the Czech Republic — do Celtic really need to go to South America to sign a defender for £5 million?” I claim nothing by way of foreknowledge of Scheidt being so aptly named — just that Celtic being the first British club to go to Brazil for a centre-half seemed an expensive joke.
Hooiveld can talk for Europe — this is already apparent — but we await to see if he is any good. More pertinently for Tony Mowbray, we also await to see if he is better than Gary Caldwell, whom he is effectively replacing. On this score, frankly, I doubt it.
Caldwell has been the victim of a bum deal this season. In Copenhagen in August he was blamed for Scotland’s disastrous 4-0 defeat to Norway when the entire structure of George Burley’s strategy collapsed before our eyes. He then scored an own goal against Arsenal in the Champions League qualifier which triggered another bout of Caldwell-bashing. Then, two weeks ago, he was blamed for allowing Lee McCulloch to get ahead of him to score Rangers’ equaliser in the 1-1 draw at Celtic Park.
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Amid all this it became routine to hear Caldwell being panned by his critics, despite being named as the Scottish football writers’ Player of the Year last season. The truth is, Caldwell is a good defender who will have his setbacks like anyone else.
Celtic must hope that the vocal Hooiveld can prove just as good, and collect as many honours.
Moreover, Mowbray must hope and pray that, in the two weeks that remain of his January transfer business, he can come good. Right now he is like a man who is left sweating while a divided jury is away trying to divine his guilt or innocence.
Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Falkirk at home was worrying most of all for the Celtic faithful due to Mowbray’s almost insouciant comments later that all was just about fine with his team. “The evidence is there, we’re in decent shape,” the Celtic manager said. “If you watch our games you can see the quality that the team possesses.”
All managers have to talk up their teams in times of adversity, and Mowbray is no exception. But on a day when Celtic fell nine points behind Rangers in the championship, these were still words that will have worried the club’s faithful. Some of Celtic’s play was hopeless against Falkirk, and it was certainly no time to be talking about a realm of quality that is allegedly bubbling below the surface.
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Up in the stands they made their feelings perfectly clear. Referring to last January’s disastrous four weeks in the transfer window for Celtic, a banner was unveiled depicting the SPL trophy and a toilet-pan, together with the words: “Desmond, Reid, Lawwell — Don’t Let It Happen Again”.
The charge that Celtic last season did their own flushing of their championship hopes down the pan contains a degree of truth, which is why there is added pressure on Mowbray and the club to get it right this time.
Mowbray is a very likeable guy who can talk a good game. His new Dutch centre-half seems exactly the same. But as Paul Le Guen, a doomed Rangers manager, once said: “The truth will be on the pitch.”