For three games on the bounce now – against St Mirren, Rosenborg and Kilmarnock – Celtic have been painful to watch.
The football they have played has been so dull and boring. It has been absolute dross – enough to induce a bout of narcolepsy.
They aren’t offering the fans any entertainment whatsoever. There is no flair. As a unit, the team looks so rigid and, individually, the players don’t look like they’re enjoying it.
For the last three games, Celtic have been painful to watch both offensively and defensively
The supporters couldn’t give a monkey’s about how much possession the team has – especially when it’s just tippy-tappy stuff from side to side. There has to be an end product.
Celtic have scored two goals in those three games that I mentioned. They got a late winner against Rosenborg thanks to a long ball into the penalty area, while Sunday’s goal at Rugby Park came thanks to some shambolic defending from Killie.
There is no point moaning about teams parking the bus – that’s an excuse that simply doesn’t wash as a Celtic player. It’s a complete non-starter.
You have to accept that most teams are going to play deep and be well-organised. That’s their prerogative. It’s up to you as a Celtic player to be good enough to break them down.
Celtic players must accept the onus is on them to go and break well-organised teams down
I had it back when I played. It would be up to myself, or Gary Hooper, or Anthony Stokes, or Joe Ledley to produce a bit of magic and unlock the door.
Who is doing that for this Celtic team? It’s certainly not Scott Sinclair, who looks a shadow of the player whose peers voted him the best in the country 18 months ago.
Nor is it Tom Rogic. So often the playmaker last season, he has looked off the pace since coming back from the World Cup with Australia in the summer.
Kieran Tierney – their left-back – has actually been their most creative player over recent weeks. That’s a poor reflection on a team of international footballers.
Some people were pointing the finger at Odsonne Edouard – but that’s really unfair. He’s not the finished article.
It’s not his fault he cost nine million quid. He’s still just 20 years old – learning his trade – and there are times when he’s actually the youngest Celtic player on the pitch.
You can’t expect a young lad to shoulder all of the goalscoring responsibility. Other players in the squad need to step up to the plate.
Celtic are struggling for creativity with players looking shadows of themselves from last year
Celtic have only scored six goals in their six league games so far – and three of those came against newly-promoted Livingston.
That is dreadful. Meanwhile, you have Rangers sticking five past St Johnstone in one game – with five different players on the scoresheet.
There was some chat a couple of weeks ago about how Rangers had made their worst start to a league campaign in 29 years. Newsflash: Celtic are actually below them in the league table.
What we have on our hands is a highly competitive league, with so many good teams capable of taking points off each other on any given day.
For the first time in seven years, it looks like we actually have a genuine title race on the cards. That is testament to what Steven Gerrard has done at Rangers.
They have been and played games in Spain, in Russia, in Croatia, in Macedonia, in Slovenia, as well as everything domestically – but they’ve only lost once. You have to admire that.
You saw a real mental strength in the way they twice fought back to get a point in Villarreal. Then yesterday you saw the other side – a team oozing confidence and thumping five goals past the opposition.
Rangers are scoring goals for fun currently and are now above Celtic in the league table
Gerrard was – and still is – a rookie manager. For him to come in and change things around this much has been incredible.
He has tightened them up at the back and got them knocking in a few goals at the other end. Celtic, meanwhile, have the second-lowest chance conversion rate in the whole league.
The goal drought would really worry me. Hooper and Stokes used to score 20-25 goals per season… each! Before that, you had Henrik Larsson, Chris Sutton and John Hartson all doing likewise.
This current Celtic team simply aren’t creating enough chances for anyone to get even remotely close to those kind of numbers.
When Leigh Griffiths is fit and on form, he is without a shadow of a doubt the best goalscorer Celtic have. But something isn’t right behind the scenes.
It all looks far too nicey-nicey. I’m not sure there are enough big personalities in that dressing room who would really have the bottle to have it out with each other and rattle a few cages.
That’s what it needs – a right good sorting out and for a few of them to stand up and say: ‘Look, let’s stop messing about, this is unacceptable.’ The penny needs to drop that they have a fight on their hands for the league title this season. If it doesn’t, Rangers and Hearts will only grow in confidence.
Lose to Accies and it will all come crashing down
Before PlayStations and Xboxes came along, and you could spend time entertaining the kids with some board games, a personal favourite of mine was always Jenga.
You know, the one where you pick out little blocks of wood from a tower, until the point where the whole thing comes crashing down.
That’s what Dundee remind me of at the moment, a block of Jenga. All it takes is one wrong move for the whole thing to fall to pieces.
Dundee’s miserable start to the season resembles Jenga, as it is all falling apart says Commons
They looked like they were well in the game against Hibs on Saturday. But, as soon as they lost a goal, the whole thing just went belly-up in double-quick time.
They were blown away in the end and Neil McCann’s jacket is now in a very shaky peg heading into the game against Hamilton this weekend.
I know McCann personally and I can vouch that he works his socks off. But league tables don’t lie – Dundee are rock bottom, pointless, and have only scored two goals in six games.
You can understand why fans are calling out for him to be relieved of his duties. Look at Kilmarnock last season and the effect that Steve Clarke had on them.
They were hopeless before Clarke arrived in October. The rest, as they say, is history.
Boss Neil McCann wore a look of frustration as he saw his side undone against Hibernian
The reason I say that is because it’s getting to that stage now where clubs will make a change if the start hasn’t been good enough, like Killie did.
Crikey, Livingston and St Mirren have both swung the axe and made a change already. So McCann must feel a certain level of uneasiness.
Not for one second would I ever want to see someone sacked, but how long can Dundee realistically leave it?
If McCann loses against Hamilton this Saturday, I think it could be all over. It’s now or never.