Fan Opinion Piece

I was watching the Celtic game from home today, sitting in my flat. Flat being the right word for the game because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a flat, uninspiring performance from the team. The faithful at Tynecastle were flat as well and no wonder. The team’s not playing well and hasn’t been playing well for yonks.

We have all bought into the ‘Project’. But who can honestly say we’ve gone forward as a team in the last two seasons? We’re stuck in a mediocre cycle. We’ll win the odd game, draw some, lose to St Mirren away. We have a chronic problem. Given the club’s resources, we are underperforming, and we, the fans, know it.

That doesn’t explain the odd mix of rancour and outright despondency. Many clubs underperform, we’ve underperformed in the past even been relegated. This is different because our expectations as fans are higher than they’ve ever been before and rightfully so. We own our club. We haven’t just put money into the club by buying tickets or tat from the club shop. We put our money into the club itself and we want our club to be the best it possibly can be. It does not mean we do not appreciate what has been achieved. It means we want to do better than just fine. We are deeply frustrated and we’re not afraid to let it show.

The board have high ambitions too. They clearly do. Lee McCullough’s bleating about ‘unrealistic expectations’ from the club shows that the board does have high ambitions. When Robert Snodgrass spoke about the project to get us closer to Rangers and Celtic, he was echoing the line from the club hierarchy.

But being ambitious about something is very different from taking the actions needed to achieve it. On that front, the club has a problem. We lack a certain clinical, analytical, detached ruthlessness as a club. It’s all far too comfortable and soft.

It’s most obvious with the managerial decisions. When have we had a manager poached by a ‘bigger’ club anywhere? All of our managers have ended in failure. Not only are we not appointing the right people but when it becomes obvious to everyone that the manager’s not working, Budge moves with as much pace as a Robert Snodgrass sprint. Craig Levein was left in place for far too long. Same with Neilson second time around. Naismith was hired because he was around. They’ve been the familiar, comfortable, easy option (Stendel wasn’t around for long enough and the covid shutdown means it’s hard to tell). That’s the pattern and Budge and the board won’t be able to break that pattern. They’ve set the pattern.

And if it’s the pattern in the most visible parts of the club, it’s very likely to be the pattern everywhere else in the club. Look at Naismith’s backroom staff. Is McAvoy seriously the best old wise head we can muster? If that’s the case, do we have the best physios, the best data analytics bods, the best processes for recruitment?

I don’t know the answer to the above. All I know is what we can see on the pitch. For all the money we put in, we’re not getting a lot out in terms of performances and ‘closing the gap’. If anything, we’re slipping.

Until we – the fans, the owners – have a club that can take the clear-sighted, sometimes ruthless decisions needed to squeeze every last bit of resource, we will never achieve our ambitions. Instead, we’ll always be in or around fourth or fifth best, with the occasional third place finish. It’s all a bit mediocre. don’t know about you, but that’s not good enough for me.