I AM bored with Celtic.
It's almost 12 months to the day since Brendan Rodgers walked away and just like a bottle Château Margaux his reaction to that crazy club reaction and his thoughts on the state of the club continue to age like fine wine.
This is not me fanboying for the Carnlough man; in fact I think he might be one of the hardest men to read in the footballing world. But one thing I will never doubt was his hope to create a better Celtic.
After the aggregate defeat in Munich two seasons ago Rodgers spoke in his post-match press conference and his words echo across time.
“European credibility was always going to be important for us this season,” he said. “That’s my takeaway from this campaign, from the ten games.
“We learnt some valuable lessons along the way, we played some amazing football along the way.
“We’ve taken on a club of this size and magnitude and a club where one of the players is maybe more than our budget."
This quote has stuck with me for a while now. Whilst he was far from flawless, he made it abundantly clear that he wanted the club to learn and take a chance to leap forward into the next level.
Fast forward six months from that moment. Celtic added Kieran Tierney and Benjamin Nygren in June and then proceeded to spend the rest of the summer scrambling over purchases to only be knocked on their backside by Kairat before Rodgers walked away.
When Martin O'Neill returned it was a hero's welcome. It felt almost testimonial-like when he returned to beat Rangers and looked to restore Celtic back to the top of the perch. Then the Wilfried Nancy debacle took place before the former St Malachy's boy was wheeled out once again in firefighting fashion to lead a memorable league title charge.
"The club must learn from the past mistakes," said interim chairman Brian Wilson at season's end, and Martin O'Neill echoed that sentiment. And Michael Nicholson's last public appearance saw the CEO come off with similar rhetoric about the need to "learn from mistakes".
A year on from Brendan Rodgers' departure, all these issues are slowly rearing their head again.
The club is once again in disarray and despite only one loss across the league campaign, the capitulation in Europe's second-rate competition shows once again where the weakness clearly is in this Celtic side.
It's been downright regression and asset-stripping since that inspirational Bayern Munich tie.
Rather than empowering a top manager with serious financial backing, Celtic have looked to the heroes of the past for inspiration in the future, yet the lessons and failures of the past never seem to lead to improvement.
Spending £37 million in a transfer window is all well and good, but when you recoup close to £50 million and leave gaping holes across the park, therein lies the problem.
The Celta Vigo game was one of the worst capitulations I have seen from Celtic since, well... since August.
The constant hammerings and just looking completely out of our depth against mid-level European opponents are a world away from the cusp of glory in Munich and very telling about where the club is headed.
Scraping by Hibs a week on from hammering Hearts isn't glorifying in any way. Calling it the "best win of the season" is disrespectful from the manager to every fan with a working pair of eyes. In all honesty, I envied those who missed the game.
No style, no pattern of play, just sheer reliance on the flat-track bullying of teams who are the definition of bang-average.
Domestic success is great, we all love it and this is not meant to undermine Scottish football. But clubs like Celtic aren't judged outside of these shores by beating St Johnstone, Kilmarnock and Hibs.
It's the Thursday nights under the lights, it's the memory of those famous nights under lights in Paradise when heroes rose and stars shone against European elites.
Outside of Rangers, there is rarely a game that has you on the edge of your seat in Scotland. That's not to say I don't watch and attend as many games as I can – I do. We all love Celtic, but we all want it to be the best version of itself.
For many it's our first love, the first thing we became attached to as we moved from childhood to Bhoyhood. I include myself in that sentiment – the thousands spent to see the Hoops worldwide, the annual cash spending spree to show support for the team and the thousands of hours we've spent pondering results with the accompanying rage, delight and ecstasy. We do it because we care and when you see the men in suits try and dictate what is best for the club when they've only ever thumbed the cash is disheartening.
Most fans just want Celtic to invest in itself and become a sustainable competitive European power again. That's not too much to ask, is it? Certain men in suits clearly disagree.
It's not unrealistic, it's within grasp, but when fans who dream of the Lisbon Lions and the Road to Seville are seen as nothing more than customers by those who dictate the ambition of the club then I fear we are at a crossroads.
You can disguise it however you want, especially in the week that's in it. Many people will dress up and pretend to be another person or character on Halloween, but it's becoming clear that the Celtic boardroom's calendar is stuck on October 31, as every day they cosplay as football men when in reality they're more at home scraping around that famous biscuit tin.
