welcome home tony mowbray

wgs checks out as the mogga years get off to a promising start

The end for Gordon Strachan was as predictable as it was inevitable, but in the end, thankfully, it passed without the rancour that some had predicted and many had feared. He took his bow at the Tommy Burns charity match and we parted on good terms.

Who to replace him was the question, and the brief summer hiatus threw up some weird and wonderful answers. It was always going to be a difficult one, selling an SPL club to a proven international class coach, especially with the sorry state of the game in this country at the moment. Added to that the constraints under which any manager has to operate at Celtic in terms of budget and it’s clear that whoever was to take the job on would have to be someone of formidable character.

After weeks of speculation eventually it was Tony Mowbray who was invited to strap himself into Old Smokey, the Celtic Park hotseat, with Peter Grant as his assistant should he need pointed in the right direction.

One thing they have got going in their favour is that they don’t have to follow Martin O’Neill. Where they will face similar challenges to their immediate predecessor is in having to rebuild a squad which has lost a handful of first-team regulars and has had its morale sapped to the utmost after a disastrous league campaign last season. In his attempts to supplement his playing squad Mogga will have been told that he won’t have the budget that he had at West Bromwich Albion - painful to admit as it is.

Yet, despite the obvious difficulties, he has made a promising start to his Celtic managerial career. There’s more to come (hopefully) from Fortun’e, he looks to have got himself a bargain with N’Guemo and - look out the bunting, we’re having a street party - he has signed somebody for the left-back slot. All areas of the team that needed strengthened.

More importantly, perhaps, he seems to have restored some of the team spirit that has been so painfully lacking at times during the last twelve months. Allied to a simplified system of play that’s a lot more easy on the eye than last season, and it’s clear that he has already started the process of turning things around and moulding his Celtic team in a way that will have the fans won round in jig time.

If the pre-season displays by the first team and the reserves was encouraging enough, the turning round of a first leg deficit in the Champions League qualifier against Dynamo - his own bit of Celtic history in his second competitive game - was stunning given our performances away from home in this competition in recent years. Mogga managed to dodge his Artmedia moment and now European football is guaranteed until Christmas, we have a nothing-to-lose chance to go up against the Arse for a place in the group stages and whatever plans Minty Moonbeams might have had for spending his European windfall - maybe on a couple of apprentices from the bargain bucket - have been put in check for the time being.

What’s not to be pleased about this month?

Of course the real work is about to start soon and there is a league championship to reclaim from the Death Star, before they go and pawn it to raise some funds. No doubt there will be a few more comings and goings before September (a commanding centre back and another striker would be nice) but big Tony has already given us the impression that he is well aware of the task that lies in store.

As the doubts about his qualifications for the job are gradually assuaged, the board must now show that they have learned their lessons from last season by backing the new man with as much money as possible and by building bridges with a support they went a fair way to alienating last season.

It’s a new start and we wish all of them all the very best for the new season.

Hail hail Mogga and good luck.