John Barnes, superb footballer, nice guy, but the Celtic job should never have been his…
The appointment of John Barnes as manager of Celtic football club in 1999 was a very big mistake. Barnes was a superb footballer and a nice guy, but that didn’t make him qualified to manage a football club the size of Celtic in his first job in the dugout.
It was a similar scenario eight years earlier when the club appointed Liam Brady as manager. Brady was also a fantastic footballer and also decent guy but he didn’t have the credentials either to manage Celtic. Brady like Barnes also crashed and burned although Brady was giving more time than Barnes which in the end proved a big mistake.
Great players don’t necessarily make good managers. And both of them proved that. When Kenny Dalglish announced Barnes as new head coach alarm bells rang amongst most of the Celtic supporters, myself included.
Kenny said he was impressed with Barnes and his coaching ability at youth level, but there’s a big difference between that and managing one of the biggest clubs in Europe. Kenny wasn’t thinking clearly or impartially when he decided to appoint his former team mate.
Barnes had a decent start at the club and the players played some superb stuff under the Englishman. But then again he did have players such as Henrik Larsson, Lubo Moravcik and Mark Viduka in his squad. The horrific leg break suffered by Henrik Larsson didn’t help John’s chances, but that wasn’t the reason he flopped.
The reason was that he wasn’t a good manager. He didn’t have the man management skills to succeed in management. The Inverness Caley Thistle debacle which sealed his fate proved that. Although the writing was on the wall the previous weekend after we suffered a 3-2 home defeat to Hearts, a game we were 2-0 up and cruising at one point. That was unforgivable. Over the course of those two games Barnes completely lost the dressing room and his fate was sealed.
John may complain that he didn’t get a fair chance, but at the end of the day the Celtic job was too big for him. He should never have been appointed. John was never top managerial material at that stage and you only have to look at his CV since he left the club to understand that a top manager he was never going to become. I rest my case.
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
