The Centre Circle

It was inevitably going to happen. After being totally humiliated 4-0 by a St Mirren side who hadn’t been able to beat a 9 man Rangers team at the weekend, Tony Mowbray was relieved of his duties this afternoon. Currently 10 points behind Rangers in the Scottish Premier league, there is virtually no chance of Celtic catching their deadly rivals and that is not good enough if you are the Bhoys’ manager.

Mowbray was widely welcomed in the summer as Celtic’s new manager and he completely dismantled the team he inherited from the previous manager Gordon Strachan. The irony is that although as a player he was a tough no nonsense defender, Mowbray’s achillies heel always has been that his teams played attractive but ineffective football, open and nice to watch, but totally unable to defend. Mowbray’s teams have always leaked goals. Have a look at his time at West Brom. He drew the plaudits for the style of play, but they still got relegated from the Premiership. Looking at his league record, played 30 games, won 17 lost 8, it was never going to be good enough to overhaul Rangers. The board had a choice wether to stick with Mowbray and see if the team he was building would develop, or react now. Only 34.000 turned up to Celtic’s last home game. The fan’s apathy was obvious and I think this was one of the things that helped the decision that the board today made. The horrendous 4-0 defeat to a team Celtic hadn’t lost to in 21 years was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Unless you are Arsene Wenger (who is a genius), the way to build a team is to be pragmatic, start at the back, have a solid base and then add the flair as you go. Mowbray has admirable convictions, but is not a top manager and the players he was dealing with are were in general not talented enough to play a open reactive game as he wished. In my view his strategy is, and always and has been flawed.

Neil Lennon I understand will take over caretaker duties, and the search for a new manager will start immediately.