european lessons are there to be learned from

To date, the Celtic board have made available to MON something in the region of £30 million during the time he has been at Celtic. Whatever way up you hold it, that can hardly be described as a 'biscuit tin mentality (as a survivor of Celtic: The Biscuit Tin Years I can still remember the real thing). In addition the PLC have also had to fund the wages paid to these players, most of whom earn more in a week than the majority of the rest of us earn in a year.

Much of that money was spent in his first couple of seasons. The board found this cash by sharply increasing the cost of season tickets by well in excess of the inflation rate and from the money raised by the last share issue - a share issue, incidentally, that the much maligned Dermot Desmond pretty much paid for.

The figures would seem to confirm that MON has not only had more cash to spend than any previous Celtic manager but he has also had access to more transfer cash than any other current manager in Scotland. He quite rightly argues that the greater the transfer budget available to a manager then the better the chance of success both domestically and in Europe. However, playing fantasy manager with pretty much unlimited funds is an opportunity available to a select few, Mourinho at Chelsea being one of the few examples.

But does having access to greater cash resources than your rivals, and buying success, make you a better manager? Surely the measure of a top class manager is that he can also bring through youngsters and improve all the players at the club? It could be argued that the domestic success during MON's first 4 seasons was 'bought' as a result of having access to greater cash resources than our rivals. Now that the cash available to buy success is much reduced will he be able to keep Celtic dominant successfully and keep us competitive in Europe? Can he successfully operate at the lower end of the transfer market and in signing players on Bosmans?

The evidence from his previous signings seems to indicate that he is good at signing quality players at the top end of the market - players who it could be argued are already pretty much the finished article - but that he displays more questionable judgement when signing players at the lower end of the market. As for Bosmans, he seems quite allergic to making signings via this route.

That poses the question as to how Celtic will progress under MON. If enough transfer money is made available then the probability is we will continue to do well (you could reasonably argue, of course, that if enough transfer money is made available then we should be dominant domestically whoever the manager is). However, if transfer money is limited - and the board are making noises to suggest that this will be the case - we might well have a battle on our hands to retain even domestic superiority.

His signings at the lower end of the market don't inspire confidence. Even the much maligned Barnes and Dalglish managed to successfully sign Stan Petrov for £1m. Just ask yourself if MON would have made a signing like this. To my mind he is very conservative when it comes to signings in the sense that he seems to focus almost exclusively on players who have played in either England or Scotland.

This is a critical season (aren't they all?) for MON and Celtic. After the euphoria of a treble in his first season and an appearance in the UEFA Cup Final in his third season we now seem to be reaching a plateau, if not actually going backwards. Celtic seem to be rapidly approaching a crossroads and we can only hope that the manager and the board have settled on the strategy necessary to ensure that we start the trend going onwards and upwards again.

The Champions League campaign has seen us endure some painful lessons. It's time for all concerned to learn from them.

GEORGE OF THE NORTH STAND