Is Tony Mowbray the man to take Celtic to where they want to be?

It looks as though Celtic are going to name current West Brom boss Tony Mowbray as their new manager. After a stand-off between the clubs lasting several days West Brom have now given Celtic permission to talk to Mowbray about the Parkhead vacancy after agreeing a £2million compensation package in principle.

Celtic will also pay an additional compensation figure for assistant Mark Venus and first-team coach Peter Grant.

West Brom chairman Jeremy Peace told his club website,

“We do not want to lose Tony because he has been an integral part of a long-term project at the club which the vast majority of our fans have bought into. But Tony expressed his desire to talk to Celtic and, now that the compensation figure in his contract has been met to our satisfaction, that process can take place. If Tony decides to join Celtic, he would leave with our good wishes and we would then immediately put into action the task of appointing a new manager who can take the club forward.”

It is by no means certain that Mowbray was Celtic’s first choice. It is believed that they wanted Burnley’s promotion winning manager Owen Coyle but the compensation being demanded by the Premier League new boys was too high for Celtic to pursue their wishes.

Scrapped

Reports suggested that following the move away from Coyle, Celtic turned their attentions to Swansea’s Roberto Martinez. That plan had to be scrapped when Premier League Wigan made it clear that Martinez was their number one target.

So it was only after those two avenues fell through that Celtic looked towards Tony Mowbray.

Celtic chairman John Reid, told the club’s website that they would be talking to Mowbray,

“These are complex but important negotiations and we can assure our supporters that we continue to aim to get the right man for the job in the right way.”

Mowbray is a popular figure at Celtic after playing for them between 1991 and 1995. As a manager he had a short spell as caretaker at Ipswich before becoming the manager at Hibernian.

Attractive

Whilst at Easter Road Mowbray made a reputation for getting his side to play the game in the right way. As well as playing attractive football he also had relative success at the club with top four finishes in 2005 and 2006.

After those two good seasons Mowbray moved back to England to manage Championship side West Brom.

In his first season he took the Baggies to the play-off final but saw them lose to Derby. The next season was more straight forward and he led his side into the Premier League automatically.

Credit

In their first season back in the top flight Mowbray was given much credit for sticking to his principles of passing, attractive football, but failed to deliver enough results to avoid going straight back down to the Championship.

Mowbray’s assistant at West Brom, Peter Grant, will also make the move to Celtic and the pair of them will be a popular choice.

Peter Rafferty, the secretary of the Association of Celtic Supporters’ Clubs said,

“He has served a decent apprenticeship in Scotland and England. He is obviously aware of Celtic and he will be well received by the fans. Peter Grant will be coming with him and nobody is a bigger Celtic man. Even at West Brom Tony was committed to playing good football and the fans still supported him, and that says a lot when he got the team relegated.”

Mowbray is a decent manager and he will be an OK appointment for the club. The question that I would ask is whether he is a big enough name and proven enough manager to take Celtic to the forefront of the European game where they crave to be. Will he provide the necessary pulling power to attract top European players to Celtic?

We shall see.