In Summer 2009, Celtic were searching for a new manager to succeed the ever successful Gordon Strachen. Celtic were on a high after winning 3 titles in-a-row, and fans were confident they would find an adequate replacement manager. On 9th June. Tony Mowbray was brought in from West Brom. Tony was received well by the Hoops fans, especially when he proclaimed his intention to get Celtic playing attractive football playing "The Celtic Way". Things started ever so well for Mowbray as he had a brilliant pre-season, winning the inaugural Wembley cup over Barcelona and Tottenham. However, a snag. He did this with Strachen's team. A few players inevitably left and Mowbray intended on building his own team for the season. Some of the signings Mowbray made were questionable. What raised the fans' eyebrows the most was paying £4 million for the distinctly average Marc-Antoine Fortuné (as detailed previously in this article). Eariy in the season, Celtic were chucked into the Europa League by Arsenal. That's not the bad part though, there's no shame in Celtic being knocked out by Arsenal, it was the Europa League campaign that brought the must shame on Mowbray's Celtic before Christmas. Things had been running reasonably smoothly in the league until they first faced Rangers at Ibrox. A 2-1 defeat started a chain reaction of losses for Tony's Celts. They became far adrift of their Glasgow rivals. Things got desperate for Mowbray in January. Rangers were 10 points clear at the top of the table, and Mowbray told his team in the dressing room that they weren't good enough to where the green and white hoops, and decided to shake up the team. As told near the beginning of the article, Scott Macdonald, our leading scorer - a proven striker - was sold to make way for Robbie Keane who came in on loan. More loan signings were made, one of them being Diomansy Kamara, who turned out to be a waste. He scored a couple of goals, but to let Scott Macdonald go and get Kamara in for a loan was disappointing. Keane and Macdonald would have worked great together. Two main midfielders were also sold, Barry Robson and Willo Flood. It was clear Mowbray was going for broke. Celtic had to attack, attack, attack. He just forgot to tell his team how to defend. The shake-up didn't work, and Mowbray's stint ended horrifically with an embarrassing 4-0 defeat away at St Mirren. Neil Lennon took over and showed him how its done, as he won the last remaining 8 games in the league, including a 2-1 win at home against Rangers. Looking back, it was a painfully bad decision to appoint Mowbray. He was a proven yo-yo manager, nothing better. He could perform in the lower leagues with the Midlands team, but when it came to the big games he didn't have a clue, and thats exactly what happened with him at Celtic. He couldn't beat Rangers, and he ruined Celtic's astonishing home record in Europe, managing to be beaten and draw to teams which were deemed inferior to Celtic at the time (Hamburg and Rapid Vienna). When he realised how difficult the season was going he threw his composure away, and it ended up being one of the most miserable seasons for Celtic fans since the dark 90s era.
As a recent university graduate and a huge supporter of Celtic FC, what better way to use my inevitable free time to write about my favourite football team? I'll cover most things that the supporters are talking about at the moment, which includes things that directly and indirectly involve the club. At times I may also stray into matters concerning English clubs.
