Mowbray is 'comfortable' with Celtic's progress

Published on Wednesday 21 October 2009 22:41

THERE is a pre-occupation with stressing either the contrasts or the commonalities when it comes to Celtic and Rangers.

And how Tony Mowbray's side fare in their Europa League tie against Hamburg this evening will decide whether they suffer the former or latter fate.

Yet there was not a chance that Mowbray would accept the invitation to offer up a treatise on the impoverished state of the Scottish game following the ignominy at Ibrox for the home side the other evening.

"I don't think it is there for me to talk about," he said. "I'll let you guys. I'll worry about my team. The Hamburg game is one we are looking forward to; a game in which we believe we can get a positive result. Let's wait and see. In the aftermath, you can decide about the Scottish game."

Whatever the outcome, Mowbray may arrive at different conclusions from the many who appear in an almighty haste to inflate the inefficiencies of his side. Yesterday he was willing to dispute that he has endured 'teething problems'.

He went so far as to claim his team had "played well consistently" and "generally" did so in the scoreless draw with Motherwell that generated 'worst start in 63 years' guff because that fitted with some spurious statistic.

"It is an argument that can leave you vulnerable at times, but I've always been a performance coach," he said. "The performance against Motherwell was there to see. But you get judged by people, probably without the professional eye, on results. You have to accept that. Put it this way, I'm comfortable with the progress that we're making. Would we like to win every game? Yes we would."

Undeniably, though, failure to register a first home win in Europe this evening – following the Champions League qualifying losses to Dinamo Moscow and Arsenal and the Europa League draw against Rapid Vienna – would have an already jumpy Celtic support leaping further on his case. Even if Hamburg are joint-top of the Bundesliga and "their third-choice centre forward cost 12m and they've a left winger who cost 8m." Their "talent" is reason enough for Mowbray to admit an open game would "leave our players a bit exposed" and that it would then be a case of asking fans "to be a bit patient." Mowbray requires that beyond this evening.

He described it as "a leading question" when asked his thoughts about those followers who felt Celtic should be doing better. "I'm employed by the football club to manage the football team and I've been doing that to the best of my ability with the resources I've got," he said. "This team will change as time moves on. It's my responsibility to do that.

"With every window of opportunity you try and improve your team. The vast majority of the clear-minded Celtic supporters will understand what we are trying to achieve, the journey we are on."

Those 'clear-minded supporters' probably number about three. The rest, meanwhile, will look at the solitary point taken from the league games against Rangers and Motherwell, and the solitary point taken from two Europa League games, and see little progress. Even if there have been decent flashes and the chance-making rate, if not conversion ratio, has improved from the final months of last term. However, with the starting XI against Motherwell entirely inherited, the mood of the Celtic fans hasn't been helped by seeing frustratingly little evidence of Mowbray's restructuring of the squad. A problem not his making.

"In an ideal world (Marc-Antoine] Fortune would be fit and scoring goals," he said. "In his last league game for us (six weeks ago] he scored two. When he's fit (in the next couple of weeks] I hope the team can get back to scoring goals and have a platform to build on. (Landry] N'Geumo wasn't available (after returning from international duty on the Friday] and Danny Fox was injured.

"As time moves on things will evolve. When I moved from West Brom there were only two players left from the 35 I inherited, Paul Robinson and Jonathan Greening. They were stronger when I left than when I arrived. I think Celtic will be stronger the day I leave than from the day I arrived, but that has yet to be proven."

Achieving that will depend on "lost of different things". The scouting, "moving players on you don't want" to generate funds and finding players willing to come to Scotland among these. "If we could find 10 players in the next window and I'm convinced they're all going to be better than what we've got, and we can bring them all in, then I'm going to be delighted. We might only find two, though, as I'm not in the business of bringing players in for the numbers."

None of this helps Mowbray in the here and now. Of those who weren't available to him on Saturday, Andreas Hinkel and N'Geumo will come in to contention, with the Celtic manager hinting that Stephen McManus and Gary Caldwell will be retained as the centre-back duo.

Meanwhile, Celtic's struggles in the Europa League – defeat away to Hapoel Tel Aviv followed by the Rapid draw – and beyond Shaun Maloney traces to the sobering nature of the home and away Champions League defeats against Arsenal demoting them to the second tier tournament.

"The away win against Dinamo Moscow was a confidence booster but then the Arsenal matches knocked the confidence, and maybe in Europe we haven't quite recovered from that yet," he said. "It is just a personal thing – I don't know how everyone else felt – but the way Arsenal played, along with how difficult we found it, was hard to take. It just felt a fair gap between the teams."

Celtic have to mind the gap that could be exposed this evening. Between them and their Europa League group opponents, and between those involved in the playing and those doing the paying.