WALTER Smith in particular and Rangers in general are at least able to cite the sins of an earlier, more extravagant age for the penury that explains the failure to buy the players in the summer that would have replenished depleted stocks and helped prevent a steep, seemingly irreversible decline.
Celtic have no such excuse for the pathetic performances they have delivered under the already questionable management of Tony Mowbray. Far from having no cash reserves, the club's board – or, more accurately, major shareholder Dermot Desmond –
decided some time ago that, despite the present health of their finances, there would be no repeat of the losses sustained in the Martin O'Neill era.
Since you can't recruit players such as Chris Sutton, John Hartson, Neil Lennon and others and not pay them properly, a deterioration in standards is inevitable. It was strange, too, that a manager who had just finished bottom of the English Premier League should be so readily given a job as prestigious and demanding as manager of Celtic. The result of Mowbray's relative lack of status is that he has come into the position with nothing like the power and influence of O'Neill or even that of the single-minded Gordon Strachan.
Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell, however, does have a voice and, now the fans have begun throwing vitriol in his direction, he could be the one to persuade Desmond of the certainty that keeping to the present course will lead to reduced sales in all areas and the onset of just the kind of fiscal cancer they are trying to avoid.
