Celtic FC have had a horror 25-26 season, time to reset and go back to basic football.

 

A basic analysis of what Celtic have got so wrong, by Brendan Hunter.

 It's safe to say the 2025/26 season has been nothing short of a disaster for Celtic. One could point to a specific part of the year when it went wrong, or you could make a list of all the reasons. Every fan seems to have someone to blame, with the majority of people pointing the finger to the Celtic board of directors. Others have pointed to the boring negative style of football led by manager Brendan Rodgers and some will say the kamikaze attack first tactics of short-lived boss Wilfried Nancy was a setback in an already tough season. The truth is everyone is at fault in some way or another. We can analyse all the moments where the wheels began to slowly fall and then roll off, I mean getting knocked out of the Champions League playoffs by a team from Kazakhstan who had a major shoestring budget compared to the Hoops wasn't exactly a good star or sign of things to come. But the reality of the situation is this: Whilst everyone looks for people to blame, or excuses as to why the season has gone so Pete Tong, the answer is staring everyone in the face. The team are just not good enough. Has Celtic played boring football? (F***) Yes. Has the board spent little money? Yes. Have the scouts and transfer team had a stinker? Yes. But just like modern football, we are reading way too much into data and statistics, so let's break it down nice and simple.

When Sinisalo was made first choice keeper due to Kasper Schmeichals injury, one thing became very clear between pundits and fans alike. Sinisalo was performing way better than Kasper. Why? Well unlike his Danish rival, Sinisalo could actually save shots. Kasper is great with the ball at his feet, but that doesn't stop goals going past you. The upgrade here? A keeper that can save shots. Nice and simple, no analytics needed, we finally have a keeper that can do his job.

This is just one example here but, you can go through the entire squad and point this out. Celtics defenders (Scales, Murray and Trusty mainly) are all good at dribbling the ball and passing it, mostly between each other. But they all have something worryingly in common, they are defenders that cannot defend. Scales once a game it seems clatters into his man for no reason, Murray is major error-prone and Trusty can flip between prime Maldini and Oliver Tebily in the space of a minute. What is the problem? Defenders that cannot defend.

Off to midfield we go and boy where do we start? Again in common we have central midfielders that seem scared to pass the ball forward, often settling to pass it backwards or sideways. They don't dribble, they don't shoot, they play it safe. Callum Mcgregor is possibly the biggest offender of this, spending more time pointing than driving forward in a typical 90 minutes. This is the frustrating part as he has shown he can hit long range screamers, recently vs St Mirren he scored a game winner this way after 89 minutes of passing it sideways. He also is the player that gets the least criticism as he is the captain and "Mr Celtic". I don't doubt for one minute that he is a massive Celtic fan, and wants nothing but success for the club. But when your captain is so fine with passing it sideways, taking corners and free kicks short even when you are 2-0 down with 5 minutes left then that sets the tone within the entire squad. The only player that passes it forward is Reo Hatate, and you can see the difference between his first season and the current season. Then? He passed it forward, often trying through balls, and they almost always came off because there were people there wanting to run on. Now? Who actually wants to score? Why shoot when you can recycle possession? This leads to a lot of his passes not coming off, and it has led to Celtic fans calling him a poor player. Hatate's first season saw him get 7 assists. This season? 2 assists. Problem? Midfielders that can't or most worryingly, want to create chances. 

And the holy grail of the season, the strikers. I mean the stats speak for themselves, with the top scorer this season being a midfielder. You could even make the argument that Johnny Kenny cost Wilfried Nancy his job as manager. I have never seen a striker miss so many chances in my life. But again after Nancy left the chances dried up as did the goals. Strikers with no chances to score is gonna lead to the obvious. No goals. Watch football from the 200's and watch it now. See the difference? Even when Celtic had strikers like Larsson, Sutton, Hartson, Mcdonald, Zurawski etc who would score tap ins and headers now and then, they were all capable and more importantly willing to actually shoot. That is missing now and if Martin O'Neill can't fix that then no one can. Problem? Strikers are not scoring or getting chances.

 Some people might dismiss these issues, after all football is played the same style by most teams these days. You could argue because of this, scouting is harder than ever as every one is looking for or even expecting players like defenders or keepers to be good with the ball at feet or midfielders to control possession. But football is an easy game we have made difficult for ourselves. Difficult for the player sand most of all difficult for the fans to watch. But it's not. If Celtic signed a striker that can score then this season would have been much, much different.