Former Celtic manager John Barnes has been reflecting on his brief spell in charge of Celtic. The former Hoops boss lasted less than a season in charge of the club, and was sacked following a 3-1 Scottish Cup loss to Inverness.
However, Barnes feels that the real problem at the club wasn’t just the poor results. He feels that the lack of harmony in the squad was to blame.
“The players, mainly because of financial reasons weren’t happy. That goes on to the pitch” he said, as reported by the Evening Times.
“The harmony wasn’t right”
“We were only four points behind Rangers after 13 games. But the harmony wasn’t right. I knew if we went through a sticky patch that would be it.”
Interestingly, most of the same team that was in Barnes’ squad won the treble under Martin O’Neill the next season at Celtic.
Injury to Larsson ended hope of decent season
The poor harmony at the club may also have been because key man Henrik Larsson missed a large part of the season with a broken leg.
It was always going to be a gamble appointing Barnes as Celtic manager. He was a managerial rookie, after all. However, the injury to Larsson badly affected the side and it was no shock that the team couldn’t cope with the loss of such an important player.
As the Hoops celebrate a ‘treble treble’, times have certainly changed at Celtic since Barnes was manager.
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