Maloney on timelines, Fotheringham and John Kennedy

Maloney, who has moved from his position as Professional Player Pathway Manager to support interim boss Martin O’Neill until a long-term replacement for Brendan Rodgers is appointed, acknowledges that the atmosphere at Lennoxtown has been challenging since the players were informed of the managerial upheaval.

Maloney noted that while the senior players – who have spent years working closely with Rodgers and John Kennedy – have likely felt their exit most deeply, he and O’Neill are counting on that same group to help guide the squad through the coming days, particularly in tonight’s vital Scottish Premiership encounter with Falkirk.

Maloney, as reported by The Herald,*  said: “The last 24 hours have been extremely hectic, turbulent and probably a big bit traumatic for everyone up at Lennoxtown. It’s been some 24 hours. The players are really close with Brendan and his staff. I would say that the relationship John has with these guys is extreme. It’s deep, it runs deep. He helped bring KT through from the youth team and it’s similar with Callum.”

“John’s relationship with these guys is really strong. I know that hurt but they have to separate it. And in fairness, they did. The senior players were really good today. Alistair Johnson’s in that, even though he didn’t come through the academy, and he’s a really strong character.”

Maloney added: “I haven’t managed to speak to Cameron yet just because of the surgery yesterday, but I will. He’s already offered to be a big part of trying to support the group, even 24 hours post-surgery. So yeah, we’ve got some good people. These situations are tough, but the club has seen them before. The hardest part is probably trying to actually detach from obviously the sadness of really good people leaving the club.”

“My role was really separate from the coaches. I saw them every day in terms of breakfast, and lunch. I would sit with them, chat about our games and other games going on around the world,” he continued. “But to then come straight into coaching the team this morning needed a fair bit of work from everyone.”

That effort saw Mark Fotheringham join the coaching team, and both he and Maloney admitted it was impossible to turn down the chance to support the club during such a turbulent period.

“I think once I was told about the decisions in terms of Brendan, but probably mainly the staff, I had to speak to Martin,” the 42 year-old said. “I had to speak to him and see exactly what he wanted from me and how he saw the role. In all honesty, when the club asked, you can’t say no. It was in a pretty difficult situation yesterday, we needed to try and bring some form of stability. So yeah, I couldn’t ever turn it down to try and help him.”

“I spoke to John Kennedy about 4.30pm on Monday and you start to understand that something wasn’t quite right. But it was only around 6pm that I was asked if I could come and support Martin. It took a few hours for that to really materialise and for other parts of the club to get things in place.”

Maloney added: “In terms of the staff, I called Mark Fotheringham at 11.30pm on Monday night and asked if he could be at Lennoxtown on Tuesday morning, We arrived at 6.30am and Stephen McManus was the same.”

“I asked Stephen at that time to organise in terms of the session that we were wanting. Stevie Woods was the same. Gavin [Strachan] was the same. So, it was around 11.30pm on Monday night when we were trying to create a structure and give some form of stability to the players. Did I get any sleep at all? Not much.”

* The written mainstream media have their own media conference whereas the broadcast media and the Celtic Fan Media, including The Celtic Star attend a separate media conference.

Conor Spence

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