CAPTAINCY CAN be accorded an importance it doesn't really warrant across British football. But to whom new Celtic manager Tony Mowbray eventually gives the role on a permanent basis is a matter of genuine significance. Or perhaps great symbolism.
Mowbray's predecessor, Gordon Strachan, inadvertently made it so. Despite the form difficulties that dragged down Stephen McManus last season, Strachan would not countenance dropping the defender. He seemed spared for no other reason than he was capt
ain.
The Celtic manager is privately said to have admitted as much. With some initial justification, he felt the move was not worth the media feeding frenzy it would have inevitably generated. However, the alternative eventually proved more problematic. Strachan's handling of McManus came to be regarded a blind spot. One of a number that made his management of the club so infuriating for a sizeable section of the support. And, the detractors would argue, costly in the pursuit of a fourth straight title.
A major attraction of Mowbray to many Celtic fans is simply that he is not Strachan. They are convinced that will be shown with the appointment of a new captain, and immediate distance being placed between the new regime and the previous one. It has happened already.
The other day it was announced Scott McDonald will skipper the side… when they play in his Australian homeland against Brisbane Roar next Sunday. The striker is just one of "a few" captains the Celtic manager will require as he jiggles the team around during a punishing pre-season programme leading up to the Champions League qualifier in the last week of July.
Not one of these will be McManus, but only because the captain of Celtic and Scotland will miss the early weeks of the season following knee surgery on a problem that forced him to give way to the more commanding Glen Loovens for the closing games of last season's campaign. Yet, the enforced absence could provide Mowbray with the leverage to relieve the centre-back of a role that seems to have burdened him. As boyhood supporter of the club and considered character, McManus was never going to be oblivious to the weight of history when, two years ago, at 24, he became the club's youngest captain since Billy McNeill in 1963.
Mowbray admitted the other day he would be "lying" if he said he hadn't given thought to the captaincy issue. He would deal with it when the time is right, he said, of something he "didn't want to get into"… before getting into it. A ringing endorsement of McManus was notable by its absence. He certainly did have decent things to say about a decent sort. Just not quite enough to dispel suggestions that McManus could come under pressure from his club and international colleague Gary Caldwell for duties that Mowbray performed at a number of his clubs.
"I haven't had a chat to Stephen yet, to be fair," the Celtic manager said. "I had a brief conversation in the corridor, but over the next few days and weeks, I'll sit down with them all and get a feel for it. I don't know his thoughts on the captaincy. He is a very imposing man, a good man. Seems a gentleman to me. We will see what he feels, what he thinks, and how much that decision would impact on him, positively or negatively."
Mowbray says that you could distill football captaincy down to "tossing the coin and getting on with it". In one sense, what he would expect from McManus then is no more than "doing his job", "heading the ball out of our box, passing it to our midfield players, being strong in the tackle and organising people around him". Each of these facets didn't always come easily to him last term.
Yet, Mowbray also paints a picture of the captain at Celtic that bears close resemblance to McManus. He sees the holder of the role as no less than the "standard bearer of the standards and human qualities this club represents". Yikes. It is more than being about the best player of the pitch, the Celtic manager says. "When you work with them every day, you feel what the dressing room expects, how the captain deals and interacts with the pressure of talking in front of people, and the public persona of the club. All those things are thrown in to the mix for your captain.
"I sit here today not seeing any massive reason why Stephen McManus doesn't fill all those criteria. But I would suggest there are one or two others within the club that might also fill those criteria. And as we go along let's hope there are one or two signings who fill that criteria. We will make that decision (on the captaincy] as we go along."
Mowbray doesn't seems to see much of a necessity for a teeth-gritting, team-geeing-up type leader since he looks for the old chestnut of "leaders all over the pitch".
McManus's limited talent was thrown into sharp focus as Celtic's backline failed to convince for long periods last season.
However much they bombed, though, the captaincy seemed to make McManus bombproof. The notion that Mowbray would ever ring-fence a berth in his team for a player on the basis of their wearing the armband seems offensive to Mowbray.
"I pick the best team to win a game, whether the captain is in it or whatever," he said. "My responsibility is to the team and to win football matches, and if your captain isn't performing you can't hurt the team. You've got to pick your best players." On recent evidence, it is debatable whether that "best" would necessarily include a fit-again McManus.
