It seems a long time ago now that Brendan Rodgers was being verbally booted out of Celtic.
That October evening will go down as one of the most dramatic in recent Celtic history, not least because Martin O’Neill returned to Glasgow.
But Dermot Desmond’s scathing attack on Rodgers was brought up again by Simon Jordan when Enzo Maresca was appointed as Manchester City’s new coach on Monday, replacing the departed Pep Guardiola.
Last January, Maresca left Chelsea, with many thinking it was a mutual exit after the Italian had a falling out with the powers that be at Stamford Bridge.
It now turns out that Maresca had resigned because he knew Man City wanted him as Guardiola’s replacement, so when he was confirmed at the Etihad, Chelsea released a statement explaining how he would be paying the London club compensation.
To nobody’s surprise, that perked up former Crystal Palace owner Jordan, who used Rodgers as a whipping stick, and explained that owners are no longer putting up with managers’ ‘nonsense.’
Speaking on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Jordan stated that there is a ‘new brand’ of owners putting it to their managers, who perhaps say one thing in the public eye, but mean something different behind the scenes.
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Simon Jordan fires shots at Brendan Rodgers after Enzo Maresca pays Chelsea compensation
Piers Morgan: “Manchester City and Chelsea have come to some arrangement over the appointment of Enzo Maresca as the new City manager.
“He walked out of Chelsea mid-season. It turns out that Man City are paying a £17 million settlement. There also seems to be a payment from Maresca, presumably paying back some of his money for that season. What do you think of this?”
Jordan: “I quite like this. It’s twice this season, if you saw the statement Chelsea put out. They properly had a go at Maresca. I know Behdad Eghbali (Chelsea co-owner) quite well, so I knew some of the backdrop, and I was feeding it through the talkSPORT network without being too discreet about the circumstances surrounding Maresca.
“We have seen twice this season where owners have been very robust and have had strong views on managers’ conduct. These b___rs get away with murder.
“Dermot Desmond went right after Brendan and said, ‘Pack it in, you and your nonsense.’ And Chelsea have done the same thing. I think it’s about time these managers got brought out into the public domain.
“When you see Dermot Desmond talk about Rodgers the way he did, and you see Chelsea talking about Maresca the way he did, it’s a new brand.
“Often, owners have to stand back and go, ‘You know what, I am not going to bother with this. I will play the dignified statesman.'”
Not much from Rodgers, months after exit…
Whatever you think of Desmond, he is a wealthy man for a reason, and he hasn’t got to where he is just like that.
But Celtic’s principal shareholder properly went after Rodgers and his conduct at Parkhead.
Yet months and months later, with Celtic’s trophy-laden coach now in Saudi Arabia, you have heard next to nothing about how he left Glasgow.
If Desmond was wrong in his statement about Rodgers, then surely the lawyers would have been involved by now.
But perhaps the silence from the former Hoops man says it all.
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