'It was an annihilation of Brendan. An absolute slaughter job,' Chris Sutton

Writing in his weekly newspaper column in Daily Record,  Sutton begins with reflecting on the ‘almost surreal’ experience of seeing Martin O’Neill patrolling the yards out the home dugout at Celtic Park in the midweek match against Falkirk.

Looking beyond that O’Neill’s return as essential providing a useful shield for Shaun Maloney, who knows the current Celtic squad much better than MON, and also the Celtic Board who aren’t winning many popularity polls at the moment with an increasingly disgruntled support – as the pre-match protest outside the front door at Celtic Park on Wednesday night certainly illustrates.

“The fact Brendan Rodgers is no longer Celtic manager for the game at Hampden does not shock me. Let’s be honest, I said in this very column seven days ago that I felt he wanted to leave, yet the circumstances left my head spinning.

“Resignation was not top of my list, but that’s what it was and I have absolutely no question it comes back to the same old thing. Recruitment. It was a disaster in the summer. I don’t care what anyone says. Rodgers did not get the quality to replace the quality that has left since January. Nothing that is said is going to alter my view on that.

“Are you telling me that, when Kyogo Furuhashi left at the start of the year, Rodgers got an A4 piece of paper, wrote the names Shin Yamada, Callum Osmand and Kelechi Iheanacho on it and handed it over as his wishlist for replacements?” Sutton asked.

He then turned his attention to that astonishing ‘statement to Celtic supporters’ issued by NED Dermot Desmond, the de facto controller of Celtic Football club,  a point that hopefully is scrutinised at the Celtic PLC AGM later this  month.  Sutton admits that he was shocked at Desmond’s outburst and reckons it could have a negative impact on Celtic’s attempts to secure a top quality replacement for Rodgers.

Sutton stated: “What did shock me was the subsequent statement that came from Dermot Desmond. Never in all my years as a player or a pundit have I seen or read anything quite like that. It was an annihilation of Brendan. An absolute slaughter job and it didn’t sit well with me.

Now I understand there will be people out there who think that Desmond is quite right to give his side of the story, the side from the board. That, if Rodgers gets to say his piece at weekly press conferences, then so should those above him when the time is right.

“But I don’t feel Brendan ever caned the board. He wanted better work in the transfer market and said as much, but he didn’t directly criticise. Desmond did more than criticise. He took a flamethrower to Rodgers’ character and I’d have to wonder what prospective incoming managers would make of that.”

On the discontent among the Celtic support, Sutton makes an excellent point in reminding everyone that this isn’t just about recent failings from those running the club, like Michael Nicholson’s transfer fiasco in the summer or even the club selling Kyogo back in January and still having failed to replace him to this day. It runs much deeper than that and goes back much further, as Sutton explains.

<“One thing I will say is that, if anyone thinks an unrest towards the board from fans has just come about in the past few months due to Brendan’s comments, that’s to ignore events over the past decade or so. There were ‘Don’t sleep at wheel’ protests during Neil Lennon’s second tenure, top tiers of the stadium being closed in Ronny Deila’s time due to apathy. This has been going on long before and after Rodgers’ two spells,” Sutton noted.

On Celtic’s failure to properly acknowledge John Kennedy’s decision to move on from the club he first joined in February 1998 – see photo above – Sutton reckons he was ‘harpooned out of the door’.

“I didn’t like the way John Kennedy was just harpooned out of the door. I have no relationship with John other than the fact he was a young player at the club when I was still there and I don’t know the facts or the details of why it happened, but it seemed a brutal way to go after 27 years of service.”

It was brutal, Chris and it certainly has been noted by the Celtic support. The very best of luck to John Kennedy and also to Brendan Rodgers whose only ‘crime’ was wanted Celtic to be better. The knives had been out for him all season, we’re a club who gets rid of the guy who complains about not getting the signings that had been targeted but keep the bloke who failed to get the deals across the line and the ones that he did manage to get done came way too late and probably cost the club £40m.

Did Dermot Desmond have an online rant about that? Don’t think so.

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