have the board learned their euro lesson?

December may not have been the cruellest month so far, but it has certainly had its moments. Defeat at Ibrox and a draw at Rugby Park have taken some of the shine off what would otherwise have been a month with cause for unbridled celebration following Celtic's aggregate defeat of Celta Vigo.

The win over Celta Vigo also offsets the disappointment of the defeat at Ibrox. Of the two games, the European tie, to the Celtic support, was always the more important. The fact that we have European football to look forward to in the first half of the new year is uncharted territory for most fans under the age of 30! If ever an epitaph was needed to illustrate the incompetence of the boards, and certain managers, over the last 23 years this is it. It's inconceivable that any other European club of a similar stature to Celtic has had to endure such a barren spell in European competitions.

Approaching the half way point of the season, your take on what's happened so far this season will largely depend on whether you see your Guinness glass as half empty or half full.

Four points behind Rangers at the top of the table as we go to print might have some among us already tying the rope into an ominous noose shape. A plea of mitigation might be extended in that the extra demands imposed on the players thanks to additional Thursday night European fixtures has taken its toll on fitness levels. But last year during Celtic's Champions League campaign the same players - more or less - won every SPL match.

Of much greater concern to others is Martin O'Neill's apparent inability to get rid of the giant red haired albatross round his neck in the shape of The Cat In The Hat. Six games now without a win, although it has to be said that McLeish has been carrying a satanic amount of luck during that sequence of results. Only in one of these games, the Cup Final, have Rangers clearly been the superior team, yet they have managed to avoid defeat in every one of them.

Even in the latest encounter, a combination of inept defending from the Hoops and outstanding goalkeeping by klos enabled TFOD to score three times while avoiding letting in at least five at the other end. It surely can't go on for much longer.

To have only lost one game until now is a fair achievement. We may want to win every game but it's stretching optimism too far to actually do that. O'Neill, to a large extent, has become a victim of his own extraordinary success over the last two seasons. Celtic Park remains a fortress with the only points dropped being against Rangers when Rab Douglas gifted them two goals. Not every win has been pretty and achieved with Sexy Soccer, but three points is three points whether it's a scrappy 1:0 or a scintillating 6:0.

While the league title might yet take a bit more winning than it has done in the last two seasons, one person who must be happier than most as things stand is the Celtic PlC accountant. He must have been writing off a lot of income after the worst horror show in Switzerland since the premiere of 'Nightmare on Baselstrasse', but he'll be sleeping a bit easier now. Having earned something in the region of £10 million from the club's participation in the first group phase of the Champions League last year, plus the bonus of a home game against Valencia, facing up to a season without the benefit of this particular cash cow must have been a daunting prospect. This season's four ties have gone some way to easing the pain. Unlike the Champions League, where clubs are given a share of a common pot as their television and sponsorship revenue, the UEFA Cup allows participants to negotiate their own deals. Leaving aside the Suduva match (although even that game saw the highest attendance in the competition for that round) Celtic have had the best draws possible from the point of view of earning filthy lucre; both Blackburn Rovers were snapped up by the BBC earning the club around £1.5 million, while Spanish television deals saw that figure jump to around £1.8 million for the Celta Vigo tie. The Stuttgart game will also be a big financial boost to the club, with potential earnings estimated to be in the region of £2 million.

The board deserve some credit for running the club in a professional manner (cf the Enron style management approach of Rangers) but it's time now to translate these encouraging figures into action on the pitch which is, after all, the reason for the board's existence in the first place.

Their immediate challenge is to arrest the feeling that there is a lack of purpose and direction at the moment. By contrast with the early days of OFM, the scuppering of any short-term move to the Premiership together with the continuing squabbling about the SPL and a serious lack of new faces to freshen up the team has given rise to a general lack of direction as well as rumours that Desmond and co. are making moves to bail out.

The other malaise lingering over the Walfrid is whether Martin O'Neill is going to renew his contract and remain as Celtic manager. This saga worthy of the most long-winded chronicler of Norse legend, has gone on too long now. All parties should put a stop to it now, one way or another, and the club can once again start moving forward.

Despite recent setbacks, there's still a long way to go and we remain confident that Celtic can retain the title this season. Hopefully, before the Stuttgart tie, the board will show that they have learned something from Basel and they will give some money to MON in order to invest in strengthening the starting eleven. If Santa can deliver Kleberson or someone of equivalent ability to play the wide left role it could yet be a Very Happy New Year for the Hoops.

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