Stephen McGowan: From the boardroom to the dugout, Celtic are stale

The difference between then and now is obvious. Twelve months ago, Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda and Nicholas Kuhn spearheaded a team in green-and-white banging in goals from all angles.

Yesterday, a Honda Civic of a Celtic side, the poorest since Tony Mowbray’s tenure – if not the 1990s – slid to their first defeat to Dundee at Dens Park in 37 years. They look incapable, on current form, of swatting a fly.

In their last five games, the champions have suffered two defeats, two draws and one victory. That lone success came from an injury-time winner at home to Motherwell and fooled no one.

They started yesterday’s game against a struggling Dundee side with an ineffectual forward line featuring Sebastian Tounekti, Kelechi Iheanacho and Yang Hyun-jun. For the sixth time this season they failed to score and their record in the Premiership now reads 11 goals in eight games. Hearts, Hibernian, Dundee United and Motherwell have all scored more.

There was a point at Dens Park where the stats showed 94 per cent possession for the visitors and no shots on target. A team who retain possession for possession’s sake, only once in their eight league games have they led at half-time.

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There’s no secret, no mystery, surrounding their current malaise. Spend transfer windows hoarding money, low-balling selling clubs and throwing modest sums at average players and, sooner or later, the chickens come home to roost. When Celtic fans threw tennis balls on to the pitch in protest at the board’s running of the club, it was as close as anyone in green-and-white came to hitting the target all day.

The blame game is underway and regardless of where fans take aim, they’re probably right.

Chief executive Michael Nicholson – the Invisible Man of Parkhead – has shrugged aside the concerns of fan groups over dysfunctional recruitment. That’s a hard line to maintain when they hold £77million in the bank, failed to spend on a centre forward, signed two left wingers of dubious quality, banked the £17m for Kuhn and failed to sign a replacement.

Tounekti’s career stats offer little evidence of a player likely to chip in with a significant number of goals or assists. Belgian Michel-Ange Balikwisha – a target for 18 months – cost the guts of £5million and that could use some explaining as well. Benjamin Nygren provides a reminder that £2.2million doesn’t buy you much in a market place changing fast while Celtic stand still. Whenever the Swede plays in the same midfield as Reo Hatate and Callum McGregor, it clearly doesn’t work.

Hailed as the big-ticket signing, Kieran Tierney is a shadow of his former self. That Yang and Anthony Ralston are still hanging around the starting eleven tells its own story. When Johnny Kenny is the half-time Hail Mary it shines an unflattering light on a squad lacking depth and quality.

On Saturday, Steven Pressley spoke to me last week about of how hard it is to enjoy one of the hardest jobs in Scottish football. He must, surely, have enjoyed Dundee’s first home win over Celtic since Tommy Coyne was in his goal-scoring pomp in September 1988.

With refreshing honesty, Pressley spoke of the ‘black cloud’; the malign weather front which moves across Scotland enshrouding under-fire managers in anger and negativity. Big Elvis was exposed to the elements when delusional Dundee fans signed an open letter demanding his removal earlier this month.

Russell Martin received such a soaking he should have been carted out of Rangers on a ventilator. Jimmy Thelin stayed indoors until the cloud moved to Glasgow to douse Steve Clarke in violent thunderstorms.

Ahead of a Europa League clash with Sturm Graz and a treacherous trip to Tynecastle next weekend, the cloud has now moved to Celtic Park, the rain tumbling heavily on Brendan Rodgers.

While Rodgers is right to say that the attacking options at his disposal are more of a Honda Civic than a Ferrari, Celtic fans are entitled to expect more va va voom than they’re watching now.

While Dundee – and Pressley – deserve immense credit for a display where they defended brilliantly and posed a relentless threat on the counter-attack, there is no circumstance where Celtic should lose 2-0 to a side deep in the relegation brown stuff.

As he should, Rodgers took responsibility for a wretched performance. That cut no ice with Kris Boyd afterwards when the Sky Sports pundit accused the Parkhead boss of running down his contract while eyeing the exit door next summer.

Ange Postecoglou’s return to the job market must have caught the attention of the Parkhead board over the weekend. While Big Ange’s homecoming might be the one thing an unpopular board of directors could do to boost their approval ratings, the second coming of Rodgers shows how tricky and unwise it can be to turn back the clock. From the boardroom to the dugout to the team, Celtic have grown stale. It’s a football club in need of new blood, new ideas, in every department.

Speaking after his team swept Kilmarnock aside at Rugby Park, McInnes acknowledged that the champions were there to be shot at. If his pace-setting team set about the task with the same rigour as Dundee, evidence of a shift in the tectonic plates underpinning Scottish football will be hard to refute.

Five points clear at the summit, with a chance to stretch their lead if they win next Sunday, even their goal difference is better.

Paul Sheerin watched on from the Dens Park stand yesterday and the Hearts assistant manager saw nothing to scare the horses. Swatting Kilmarnock aside with clinical efficiency, Hearts should fancy their chances of going eight points clear next weekend.

The chronic weakness of Celtic and Rangers offers a rare and precious window of opportunity. It would do Scottish football no harm at all if they pushed on and took it.