A new era begins at Celtic, with some of the old guard.
After Brendan Rodgers’ shock exit on Monday evening, it has been a whirlwind 24 hours in Glasgow, with Celtic heroes Martin O’Neill and Shaun Maloney returning to the club.
The duo are to take temporary charge of Celtic until a permanent manager is found. Nobody is in sole charge; it seems as though it will be more of a partnership, starting against Falkirk in the Premiership on Wednesday evening.
Ahead of that game, Maloney and O’Neill took their first press conference, and it made for interesting viewing.
How are the Celtic players feeling after Brendan Rodgers’ resignation
Not only has Rodgers left, but Celtic were also beaten by Hearts over the weekend to fall eight points behind Derek McInnes’ men in the Premiership table.
Maloney told his presser that it has resulted in it being a ‘tough’ morning for the Celtic players because Rodgers’ surprise and abrupt exit has been ‘traumatic for everyone.’
“In terms of him (Rodgers) as a guy, my relationship, just really positive,” said Maloney. “He gave me my first coaching job seven or eight years ago, so I am extremely grateful to him for that.
“Stayed in contact with him, as I had different manager jobs. Been back here for the last three or four months, it picked up exactly where it was.
“My experience of him. Brilliant guy. Brilliant coach. Extremely successful here. The feeling in the training ground was, as you can imagine, sometimes after results, the training ground is lower than others.
“But that’s pretty normal in every other training. The training ground was good, obviously. Today was difficult, as you would expect. It was a turbulent day. Traumatic day for everyone, not just at the stadium, but at the training ground. As expected, it was a tough morning.”
What has Maloney done in his first training session?
O’Neill was in the talkSPORT studios on Monday morning, and then hours later, Dermot Desmond was ringing him up and asking him to return.
But whilst Celtic’s legendary coach was travelling back to Glasgow overnight, Maloney took charge of training on Tuesday morning, and he shared what he did.
“If you take away the previous two weeks,” said Maloney. “I was in a very different role.
“Just today, as best I could, and the other stuff. After speaking with Martin, it was just really trying to bring stability. Normality, in terms of preparation for the game.
“Look, it’s really difficult. The club has lost some brilliant people.”
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