Tommy Martin: History has taught us it doesn't tend to end well at Parkhead

FAREWELL: Brendan Rodgers resigned as Celtic manager this week. Pic: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire.

If you know the history – it’s a line from Celtic’s club anthem and should have prepared everyone involved with the club for the events of this week.

Celtic’s second dalliance with Brendan Rodgers went pretty much the same way as the first – it ended in tears, but boy did they have fun along the way.

The chemistry was great – he, the Antrim boy with the giant ego; they, the grand old club with a weakness for big talking men. That much hadn’t changed. But in terms of long-term compatibility, forget about it.

Both sides should have had their eyes open when they got into bed a second time, after Ange Postecoglou became the latest Celtic messiah to leave the club hanging. Just like the first time around, they made beautiful music together – winning Scottish trophies in champagne style, and this time there was even the excitement of a European adventure to go with it.

But people don’t change. The quirks that were once endearing can begin to grate. Admirable traits become intolerable flaws. And this summer Celtic and Brendan gave each other the ick all over again.

Alas, Celtic loved Brendan but not as much as they loved not spending money. And Brendan loved Celtic but not as much as he loved Brendan, which meant that when it came to defending the club’s frugal transfer policy, they were on their own.

Hence the last few months, when Celtic’s response to losing an entire starting forward line through transfer and injury was to make do and mend rather than invest in expensive replacements.

A commendable approach when it comes to the drive for sustainable living, but not likely to cut the mustard in the UEFA Champions League.

And so it was with crushing logic that Celtic exited the qualifiers of Europe’s elite competition on penalties having failed to score over 180 minutes against Kairat Almaty of Kazakhstan, a team that conceded nine in their opening two matches in the competition proper.

It didn’t help that all this came just months after the club announced they had cash reserves of £77.3 million, squirrelled away like communion money following last season’s run to the knockout stages of UEFA’s big cash giveaway jamboree.

Supporters can be funny about this kind of thing, having a weird preference for seeing their team winning matches rather than getting glowing write-ups in the Financial Times.

They battered the board online and off, disrupting the recent defeat to Dundee by throwing tennis balls and oranges onto the pitch, with thrifty Parkhead board members presumably insisting the latter be sliced up and served to the players at half-time.

Rodgers had been currying favour with the revolting masses throughout this period of discontent, positioning himself as a helpless damsel locked away in a tower by the skinflint board.

He didn’t dwell on the fact that the club had given him tens of millions to spend the previous summer on three players – Adam Idah, Arne Engels and Auston Trusty – who didn’t even start the ill-fated second leg in Kazakhstan.

Things culminated in his comments after the Dundee game, when he said, "you can't be given the keys to a Honda Civic and drive it like a Ferrari," which must have been the final straw for Celtic’s largest shareholder Dermot Desmond.

A billionaire will put up with a lot of things, but being associated in public discourse with a reasonably priced family hatchback is a slander too far.

Desmond’s extraordinary attack on Rodgers in the statement released just minutes after the manager’s departure was that of one who had loved and lost.

"What has failed recently was not due to our structure or model,” he declared, “but to one individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," football business speak for “he’s turned the weans against us!” 

Sadly, Desmond shows no signs of breaking the cycle of destructive relationships. After Rodgers bailed the first time in 2019, Celtic pulled in a former manager in Neil Lennon to hold the fort. This time round he reached for Martin O’Neill, a kneejerk decision without doubt given that the legendary former boss was on Talksport anointing Hearts as Scottish champions-in-waiting just hours before his announcement as interim manager of their nearest rivals.

In fairness, O’Neill seemed as surprised as anyone to get the call, given that it is six years since he last managed and he has spent most of that time making jokes about expected goals and other high-falutin’ aspects of modern football. Unlike Lennon, his appointment will surely remain interim while Celtic chase another smooth-talking hero.

Once his ardour has cooled, Desmond might reflect on his words, and not the trash talking ones about Rodgers. “Celtic’s structure,” a line in Desmond’s statement read, “where the manager oversees football, the Chief Executive manages operations, and the Board provides oversight — has served the club with great success for more than two decades.” 

Certainly, the model has helped Celtic dominate Scottish football ahead of a historically weak Rangers. But the idea of the ‘manager overseeing football’ is about as outdated as one of O’Neill’s gags about expected goals. Desmond need only look at the club who defeated Celtic on Sunday and who sit eight points clear of them in the Scottish Premiership table.

Hearts have been beneficiaries of investment from Tony Bloom, the Brighton owner, and the use of his Jamestown Analytics data boffins to assist with recruitment. Their squad cost buttons even when compared to the money spent by Celtic’s supposedly tight-fisted board and while their manager, Derek McInnes, is a well-respected figure in the Scottish game, no one is giving him sole credit for their remarkable turnaround.

Not everyone has access to Tony Bloom’s analytical hive mind, but a club like Celtic – small fry in European terms – needs to be smarter about its recruitment than the recent embarrassing schemozzle involving Rodgers, the board and a pitchfork wielding fanbase revealed. If he wants to stop getting his heart broken, it’s time for Desmond to rest his wandering eye and employ a proper recruitment department and some nerdy data gurus to run the club’s transfer policy rather than depending on the next charismatic gaffer with a contact book.

Those who don’t know their history are condemned to repeat it.