Tony Mowbray: Pressure points

Published on Saturday 28 November 2009 19:57

TONY MOWBRAY then and Tony Mowbray now. Something's changed.

Changed utterly. When the Celtic manager was unveiled to the people in the summer there was no mistaking his authority, no getting away from the impression that this was a strong man with big ideas. He looked you in the eye, he had presence. Chirping away all the time was the doubt about his record at West Brom – glorious failure, if you will – but that first effect on his opening day was positive. He looked like he could handle the g

On Friday, a different Mowbray met the media. Diminished slightly. More softly spoken than before. Little eye contact, that was obvious. Watchful of press booby traps. Partly this is the media's doing. Partly. Mowbray has been honest and we've turned it back on him. He's criticised his players in the recent past and as newspaper folk, we've loved it, we've basked in the rare spectacle of a football man prepared to tell the truth rather than spin the lies.

But as moralists, we've tut-tutted. Double standards. We want – and crave – the honesty but when it comes, we still reserve the right to criticise him for it. Mowbray has been bitten and now he's wary. He's beginning to spin because he knows where the truth got him – on the back pages in 86-point print.

So now Mowbray is saying things that just don't ring true. "Georgios Samaras has been exceptional for us over the last month or so, probably our most important player," he said on Friday. "Particularly against Hamburg I thought he was unplayable. He is 6ft 3in-6ft 4in, has got great strength, great pace and is fantastic in the air. He can run and he can shoot with both feet, basically everything you would want in a centre forward. I hope that he can keep the sort of form he has shown over the last three or four weeks."

The fact is that Samaras has scored one goal in his last 11 games.

And this on his marquee signing, Marc-Antoine Fortune: "He got injured in August, right at the start of the season and he has got to get up and running. The opportunities that came his way at the weekend (against Dundee United] he has probably not been instinctive, he has tried to make sure of things and with the extra touch the chance has gone. I have got an understanding of where he is. Like all footballers who have been out for a long time he wants to do well. Once he has had more time on the pitch I am sure the instinctive footballer will be in evidence."

It's early days for Fortune, but still you've got to wonder about him. He's got two goals in 506 minutes for Celtic. In his last 22 matches – for Celtic and West Brom – he has scored in only two of them. A goal every 414 minutes is his average in 2009. Nearly four million quid is tied up in a player who in the calendar year has only scored against three teams – Newcastle, Wigan and St Johnstone.

Mowbray doesn't need telling about how poorly Celtic are performing; it's visible in his body language. This is Celtic's worst start to an SPL in 11 years. They're seven points behind where they were this time last season and during the week they had Aiden McGeady coming out and saying that if he was a fan he wouldn't be shelling out his hard-earned cash on watching Celtic play, not the way they are at the moment.

McGeady was only telling the truth, but it must have been a wounding remark from the manager's perspective. "I haven't seen the comments," said Mowbray, with debatable sincerity. "But what I do know about Aiden is that he was exceptionally good last week, and his performance level in general since I came through the door has been very, very high. He's a young guy who has moments of frustration on the pitch, off the pitch, but generally for the right reasons. He cares about his football team and wants to win."

That doesn't take away from the fact that one of his own players has gone public with his view that Celtic are playing rubbish football.

The past two weeks have seen his team lose leads in the dying minutes of games. At Falkirk, a win became a draw in the 83rd minute, at Dundee United, a win became a draw, became a defeat from the 83rd minute. This is one of the weaknesses of Mowbray's team writ large. Mentally and tactically, they're a frail bunch. Most of them have gone backwards as players these past months.

This is Lukasz Zaluska talking: "I spoke with Mihael Kovacevic (the Dundee United defender] and he told me that at half time (last Sunday], Craig Levein said, 'Your one job is just to block Lukasz, any chance you get' I don't think he even looked for the ball. It is very difficult if you have a guy in front of you who is two metres tall and is only trying to block you. I don't think this is just part of football, I think the referee should look for this situation, because three or four Dundee United players also caught our players."

Fact is that Celtic knew that United would try and pull this stunt, because that is what they do. It's an established United tactic. Zaluska said that before every corner he was telling the referee to look out for obstruction, but instead he'd have been better ordering his defenders to hustle Kovacevic and chums out of the road. Good central defenders wouldn't tolerate what United did. But Celtic don't have good central defenders. They have shapers, guys like Stephen McManus and Gary Caldwell and Glenn Loovens who talk the talk, but when it comes to defending a lead against a hungry United team they fold in on themselves.

"If you lose a goal or two from set plays, it becomes an issue, a psychological issue," said Mowbray. "Every corner becomes a major problem. We've got to concede none on Saturday, none on Wednesday (against Hapoel Tel Aviv in the Europa League] and hopefully then it's another couple of months before we concede another set-play goal. It becomes a problem if you lose one on Saturday, one on Wednesday, and then every time in the minds of the supporters and the players, it's a worry."

From where Mowbray is sitting, there must be a lot of worries. Certainly, he looks like a man who's carrying a heavy burden. The manager is intense, we know that much. You get the strong impression that he lives the job, almost to an unhealthy degree. Is it possible to care too much? Does endless analysis eventually become self-defeating?

A vulnerable defence, a powder-puff attack and a midfield that rarely does much of anything. That's where Celtic are at right now. Before yesterday they were just two points ahead of Hibs and Dundee United, the pair of them locked together in third. This time last year they were 12 points clear of the third-placed team.

And now they've got a Europa League match to contend with. Both of the Old Firm are in the unusual position of praying for the end, rather than the continuation, of European competition this season, such has been the diet of failure. "Hapoel (their opponents on Wednesday night] scored two in Hamburg and three in Vienna," said Mowbray. "That's a balance we've got to get; making sure we're not overly cavalier, because they will exploit the spaces. We want to make sure we set up the team properly and don't leave ourselves too open. I see this as an opportunity to try and win a football match and build off the back of that.

"It's a game we'll try to win while respecting the talent they possess. They've shown in the group how talented they are. For long spells in the first game I thought we handled their technical ability and yet I can see from the evidence of that night, if we're not set up properly, if we go and take them on in an open expansive game, they've got some very good players who could hurt us."

The pity for Celtic right now is that opponents don't need any great craft to break them down. All they need is a big heart and some muscle, la United, and the Celtic resistance packs in. Mowbray has to improve his team, but before he does that, he needs to rediscover himself. Right now, the vibe he's giving off is that of a man who's getting ground down by the pressures of his new world. Put simply, he looks bloody miserable.