IF I was John Collins - I would be wondering why I bother. In his long and distinguished career, JC was one of the few Scottish internationalists to make an impact outwith the United Kingdom.
He could well have settled in Monaco, where he had a successful playing spell; he might have gained a managerial or coaching role in England, after his spells with Everton and Fulham, but, no, he came back to Scotland - to lead Hibs to one of the great League Cup wins, before the players rebelled at his methods.
JC then had a wee spell in the media, before he did a good job as a Head Coach in Belgium, then a less-praised one at Livingston, before taking up his current role as Number Two to Ronnie Deila at Celtic.
Collins's career to date, as a 50-times capped Scotland internationalist player and a successful coach and manager, should mean, when he speaks, people listen and pay attention. However, his much-commented on interview last week, has brought a tsunami of disapproval down on him.
I reckon its the old Scottish lack of respect for one of oor ain who has done well - the "Ah kent his faither" syndrome. You know, I agree with what Collins said, and cannot understand why his comments have generated such heat.
This current Celtic squad is, by the club's high standards, a pretty average one. All things being equal, I would expect the Lisbon Lions to be able to give the current Celtic squad two goals of a start and a beating.
But, this current squad has far-less bother in winning the League than the Lions ever had. Rangers won practically nothing during Jock Stein's tenure as Celtic manager, but, they kept the pressure on their greatest rivals during this spell.
And, when Rangers had a bad season, Celtic had Eddie Turnbull's Hibs "Terrors" and Aberdeen taking-up the challenge of pushing the Champions all the way.
I decided to check-out the distances by which Celtic's nine titles were won; back then, it was in an 18-club league, two points for a win, one for a draw, so, to make the comparison fairer, I recalculated their points tally at three points for a win. This produced the following figures:
Celtic's nine-in-a-row League titles between 1966 and 1974 were won by 4-5-4-7-20-3-13-1-and 7 points. Only twice, in 1970 (20 points clear) and 1972 (13 points clear), did their final margin of victory get into double figures.
Rangers nine-in-a-row League titles between 1989 and 1997, in comparison, were won by 14-10-4-15-15-8-15-4-and 5 points. Only four of these wins were accomplished by a margin in single figures. During this spell too, Aberdeen finished runners-up five times, Hearts and Motherwell once each and Celtic twice.
Six of Rangers' nine wins were in a ten-club league, the other three in a 12-club league.
Celtic's four-in-a-row run to date has seen their winning margin being 10 points in 2011-12 (before Rangers' 10-point deduction is taken into consideration), 16 points in 2012-13, 29 points in 2013-14 and 17 points last season.
The nine-time Champions Celtic teams of the Jock Stein era won an average 73% of the available points - and were on average, 6% better than the opposition.
The nine-time Champions Rangers teams of the 1990s also won an average of 73% of the available points - and were on average 9% better than the opposition.
The current Celtic run, chasing a fifth straight title, has seen the club win an average of 80% of the available points - Celtic have been, on average, 16% better than the opposition.
Both the Stein squads and the squad over the past four seasons, played 38 league games per season. So, the figures back-up Collins's assertion - his team is not being adequately pushed in domestic games.
Those other managers who have rushed to disagree with Collins are, basically talking shite.
Hopefully, they will realise the error of their thoughts, and get down to providing a meaningful challenge to the Champions, to better prepare Celtic for the Champions League, their own clubs for the Europa League and give us the better competition Scottish football so obviously needs.
No comments:
Post a Comment