This column is more of an editorial than usual. It is a summary of the timeline of past analysis to try and place the current state of Celtic into some context as an attempt to think about what may unfold in the future.
Bi-Polar Benchmarking
With the death of Rangers, Celtic entered a new period in which the financial realities of domestic football meant that an overwhelming trophy haul was to be expected. In fact, my first column for the Celtic Way in July 2021 laid out why my “expected trophies” framework suggested that Celtic had likely underperformed in domestic cup competitions prior to Brendan Rodgers’ arrival for the 2016-2017 season.
That underperformance was resolved with an unprecedented run of trebles, but all the while, performances and results in Europe continued to fester. With the benefit of hindsight, even the 3rd place finish in the 2017-2018 Champions League group was largely the result of overcoming an Anderlecht side which was reaching its terminal phase as a Belgian top club.
To put it bluntly, the massive domestic trophy haul masked what was actually a hollowing out of the club’s quality on the pitch. The current regime at Celtic do not seem to either accept or understand this reality.
One Outta Three Ain’t Bad?
Even if we ignore Europe, I would argue that the three most important on-the-pitch domestic goals for Celtic during the post-2012 era were:
Winning the 10-in-a-row season
Win the 2021-2022 league season, as the victor enjoyed direct Champions League entry
Win the 2025-2026 Champions League qualification playoff round
Decomposing and attributing why the two failures and single success of those three is vital to understanding where the relative strengths and weaknesses reside at the club, in my opinion.
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