Where Does This Celtic Team Rank Historically?

[Honey Honey]

After going a whole season unbeaten, Celtic are now on the brink of another record having gone 62 games unbeaten domestically, matching the record, 1 more to break it.

Is this one of the greatest Celtic teams ever or one of the weakest periods in Scottish football?

[Inverted]

27 minutes ago, HoneyNUFC said:

After going a whole season unbeaten, Celtic are now on the brink of another record having gone 62 games unbeaten domestically, matching the record, 1 more to break it.

Is this one of the greatest Celtic teams ever or one of the weakest periods in Scottish football?

It's hard to judge without a run in the Europa league. In modern times the peak is obviously the Seville side with Larsson and Lambert etc. The current team has delivered some impressive performances away against sides like Mönchengladbach and Anderlecht, and qualified for the CL twice in a row which is an achievement in itself. But really if they get 3rd and get into the some knockout football we can learn a lot more. 

Domestically its again a little obscured by the fact that Rangers have collapsed and so you can't look at the league titles alone. However, the consistency in the cups has only really arrived with Rodgers. Plus, in terms of general play it's clear that this team is a massive step up from Lennon or Strachan's teams. Neither of them were remotely as methodical when it comes to structure and possession. 

The improvement of performance of players like Tierney and Brown and Griffiths doesn't just show with the insane consistency domestically but also in Europe and with the national team. 

Basically, it's the best the team has been since O'Neill imo, though I was very young back then. But things have changed, it would be even harder to hold onto Larsson today, and it was a miracle that he stayed so long even then. 

The elite teams are even further away from the rest of the pack. It doesn't matter if you're Celtic or Arsenal or whoever, if you're not in the top few teams, then you can get 5 goals put past you. Plus the insane money in the Premier League now means that the idea of having a striker that could play at the top of the table in England like Chris Sutton did, or holding onto a player like Petrov is also hugely unlikely. 

In terms of individual ability it will be a struggle to reassemble a team with any players of that stature, but there are some incredible young players like Tierney and Dembele right now and the team has an identity and consistency that was never there even with individually better players. I think there is the potential there to have a good run in the Europa league, and that's the best you can hope for if you arent in the top 5 leagues, that's just the way it is now. If you can't afford stars you need young talents and good coaching, and both of those this are there.

[The Artful Dodger]

I think it's the fact that Brendan Rodgers is so immensely dislikeable which clouds people's judgements a bit, he couldn't really do more but ultimately it s difficult to gauge.

[Spike]

What is the barometre though? Celtic's success? Or the the Scottish League's strength? Are Celtic that far above the pack, or is the rest of the league just that much poorer? It's interesting semantics. I can't really comment outside of the fact that Scott Sinclair is bossing it.

[ScoRoss]

There's a lot to be admired about the progress made by Rodgers, not least the fact that he basically took the same team as Deila had and improved it exponentially. Dembele and Sinclair were really the only changes to the starting team. The improvement to players like Armstrong and the emergence of Tierney has been Rodgers' greatest achievement so far.

In my lifetime, the best Scottish side was the Celtic team under Martin O'Neil. I mean they had Henrik Larsson up front, so this current Celtic team have quite a lot to live up to. They were ultimately defined by their results in Europe. They competed with teams from the big four leagues and made it to the UEFA Cup Final. Football has changed dramatically since then and I don't think it'll be fair to judge them on competing with Bayern, PSG, Man City and Barcelona. But if they do drop into the Europa League, I'd expect them to be competitive with teams within that competition. They've already won away to the Champions of Norway and Belgium this season, I can see them going on a decent run in that competition. 

 

[Guest]

I think unfortunately the scottish league is very weak at the moment. Rodgers has still done a great job though I think.

[ScoRoss]

Most people out with Scotland tend to not actually watch enough games to have a respectable opinion on the Scottish Premiership.

[Inverted]

I also think EPL-centrism has totally wrecked people's ability to judge most leagues. There are a lot of countries with strong club cultures and loads of support, as well as a substantial history of clubs being strong in Europe, and the wealth of the EPL and the complete destruction of the old model (whereby clubs with more fans generally make more money and are better) is a very recent trend. 

The premiership isn't bad considering the number of things going against it: tiny population, shit geography, generally weak British coaching and technical attitudes, awful marketing, and there being far too many clubs. 

In a sense Scotland kinda suffers for its depth of history in football. We have loads of small historic clubs with loyal supports, that are basically unviable in modern football. Maybe if more teams merged like ICT did the quality would improve but it's extremely difficult to find the will to do it, and rightly so.