Work in Progress: Mowbray will continue to build Celtic Pic: ©STV
Tony Mowbray insists a manager’s job is never done and while he plans for the long-term future of Celtic, the Hoops gaffer admits he will never have a perfect team. The Parkhead boss brought in eight players during the January transfer window and saw 10 leave in a major upheaval at Celtic Park.
Mowbray has come under increasing pressure as, despite the changes, his team fell of the pace of the SPL title race. The Scottish Cup is his only chance of bringing silverware to Parkhead, but he is adamant the pressure won’t distract him from his plans.
“There is no football team that is ever finished,” he said. “Managers search for football utopia where they get the perfect team, but you never get the perfect team, you are always building a team.
"Over the period, a player gets a bit older and drops off, loses the edge. You replace him and so it goes. It's a cycle.
"Every manager has a starting point. You either inherit a top team because the manager has been pretty good and put together good players and gone on to another club. Or you inherit a team that has been really struggling and needs changing.”
Mowbray, whose side are trying in vain to close the 13 point gap at the top of the SPL, insists he is doing things his way in the east end of Glasgow and no amount of pressure or criticism will detract from that.
"There is no easy job in football management. When you are trying to build a team you go through a process. It's been the same at every club I've been at. The difference at this club is in the intensity of it.
"The scrutiny of everything you do is part and parcel of it. I don't worry about that. You don't work hard for five or six years to get the opportunity to come and manage a big club then worry about it.
"You get on with it - and as long as the process doesn't change then I'm fine with it.
"I don't say I want to give you an entertaining team. I also say I want to win. Celtic knew when they employed me as manager what they were getting. It's not a secret the way I like to play football.
"Yes, I want to win - but I play a certain way, I do it a certain way. If we have to suffer not winning the league this year, then so be it. But hopefully you come out the other end with a team others can't beat because they are technically too good.”
He added: "Then you score lots of goals and win lots of matches."
