ARE ROBBIE KEANE DESMOND TALKS A DOUBLE BLUFF?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Jun 1
- 4 min read
I’ve read with what I will diplomatically call a certain degree of dismay (disgust if I’m being more honest) about the supposed meeting tonight between Robbie Keane and Celtic’s largest shareholder, not our owner, Dermot Desmond.
I will not repeat my personal gripes with Robbie Keane. Those who have read my work for any length of time will know and understand the contempt I hold for the man both personally and professionally. But for those wondering what I’m seemingly so bitter about, there’s a brief summary in this piece I wrote last year.
Since writing this piece, Keane has gone on to become the first manager in 8 years to fail to win the league with Ferencvaros in Hungary, further underling that, regardless of how I feel about the man, his conduct or his politics, he simply isn’t a good enough manager for Celtic. Not yet anyway.
I know that not all Celtic fans will share my strong views about the political stances, the seeming greed or the vindictiveness of this man who, by the time you read this, could well be our next manager. The fact that the Celtic support come from such a broad swathe of society, with differing politics, differing religions, creeds and colors, is, after all, one of our biggest strengths.
Nevertheless, whilst I do not and never will presume to speak for all of you, I know that plenty of Celtic fans, including some of the most prominent voices in Celtic Fan Media, share my dismay and anger that Robbie Keane is even under consideration to lead our club into next season and beyond.
However, I also believe that not even the Celtic board, even under the iron grip of someone as belligerent and willfully ignorant as our largest shareholder (not our owner) are stupid enough to think that the appointment of Keane would be seen as anything other than extremely divisive.
And if there is one thing, and perhaps it’s the only thing, fans and the board can agree on, it is that the last thing anyone who professes to love Celtic needs right now, it’s any more division amongst supporters.
So, I will posit this question. Are the Celtic Board using all of this as a smokescreen to try and draw the heat away from themselves, and onto what will, ultimately, be a transient figure in their machinations: Robbie Keane?
I think it’s a distinct possibility. Let me explain in more detail.
If Robbie Keane is the Only Alternative, The Board Know: it Has to be Martin O’Neill
I said last week that, after the absolutely miraculous way in which he and his staff inspired our players to somehow turn a season of failure into a league and cup double, the Celtic job should be Martin O’Neill’s for as long as he wants it.
Again though, I won’t lie and say that all Celtic fans share this view. Many feel that, as heroic as Martin O’Neill’s return was, younger blood is needed at the helm to take Celtic forward. We got out of jail last season, no doubt about it. We cannot be so slack in our approach to a new season ever again.
And yet it seems our board have done little, if indeed any work at all, to try and make that fresh infusion of young leadership happen.
If tonight’s reports are to be believed, we have a choice between a failed Ferencvaros manager who may, according to some, have knocked us back once already, and the incumbent, Martin O’Neill, who would be 75 by the time next season ends, if he did sign on for one more year.
We’ve all been talking since the turn of the year about the fact that, regardless of whether we managed to salvage the league title this season or not, a massive rebuild was required in the summer after the Wilfred Nancy debacle.
A professionally run club would have already screened, sounded out and (one would hope) interviewed a string of possible candidates by now. There is, after all, no transfer window or similar restriction on sourcing a new manager.
Martin O’Neill is the choice for the majority of fans. However, as much as I want him to get the job, I would like to have, at least, been offered a few alternative options. Most fans I have spoken to feel likewise.
So, how do you get fans to accept a far from ideal, and extremely short term option which will solve none of Celtic’s endemic problems, and instead serves only to kick the can down the road for another year?
Well, if you’re the Celtic Board it’s simple. You offer them an alternative so utterly unpalatable, so rage-inducing, that you’ll accept almost any alternative.
You can also then claim, falsely, that you are “listening and engaging” with fans’ concerns about the club, by jettisoning the guy that almost no-one in our support wanted in the first place: Robbie Keane.
As much as I don’t like the guy, Robbie Keane is still a professional manager, and a hero to many. He deserves better than to be used as a makeweight in the ongoing proxy war between Celtic’s largest shareholder, not our owner, and large sections of the Celtic support.
However, I think it may well turn out that Keane is indeed just another in a long line of “useful idiots” to a board who have burned through almost as much goodwill and benefit of the doubt as Robbie’s friends in Israel have in the past few years.
To sum up, and to paraphrase someone with far more poetic skill than me: “All I want is Martin O’Neill back, and a bag of cans!”
The cans are optional at this point.
