‘Totally wrong’ Graham Spiers reacts as his Martin O’Neill claims unravel

Graham Spiers has claimed that ‘Martin knew nothing about me writing that column’ on the back of his explosive midweek opinion piece.

Published at lunchtime on Wednesday the story quickly went viral from behind Spiers’ Patreon website. Subscriptions likely received a boost.

The long and short of the story was that Martin O’Neill was growing increasingly concerned about the lack of backing he was getting at Celtic.

Especially in relation to the employment and contracts for Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham.

Spiers went into great detail about the issues involving Maloney.

Ahead of O’Neill’s arrival as Interim Manager at the end of October Maloney had been charged with putting together a coaching team.

When Brendan Rodgers resigned John Kennedy and Adam Sadler left at the same time. Celtic never explained why. They don’t tend to do those sort of things.

Maloney’s first phone call on a long Monday was to Mark Fotheringham.

Fozzy was in at Lennoxtown at 7am, ready and preparing for a home match against Falkirk the next night.

THE O’NEILL RESCUE ACT VERSION I

The short term arrangement lasted eight matches. Celtic recorded a 100% domestic record. They reached the League Cup Final. In Europe defeat to Midtjylland was matched by a win in Feyenoord.

When Wilfried Nancy was appointed Fozzy was out of a job. Maloney returned to the thankless task of Player Pathway Manager.

Nancy lasted 33 disastrous days covering six defeats and two wins,

He could have been sacked after his first match. Nancy was as out of his depth as Silent Mike Nicholson.

Again the call went out to Maloney and Fotheringham. Again they said yes.

Somehow Celtic won the double. O’Neill regularly praised the contribution of his youthful assistants. Maloney and Fotheringham were teenagers when O’Neill managed Celtic to the 2000/01 treble. They are two generations removed from their 74-year-old boss.

SPIERS- BIG IN THE DAY BUT STILL SIGNIFICANT AND INFLUENTIAL ACROSS SOCIAL MEDIA

From his first stint as Celtic manager Spiers has been trusted by O’Neill. Almost all of that generation of reporters has moved on.

Spiers has abandoned the legacy outlets for social media.

He regularly has Stephen McGowan on his podcasts. No one is closer to what is going on inside Celtic than McGowan.

When McGowan highlighted the problems facing Maloney and Fotheringham on July 11 Celtic responded with their O’Neill announcement. Tellingly there was no mention of backroom staff.

Within 48 hours of Spiers highlighting O’Neill’s concerns about his backroom team Celtic were back on the statement template.

A four paragraph effort announced Maloney, Fotheringham and Stephen McManus as the backroom team. No mention of roles. No mention of Gavin Strachan’s successor.

Technically the Celtic statement trashed the Spiers story.

In reality there is a large grey area.

Perhaps the story from Spiers pushed the deals over the line.

Football folk have always used media friends to push their case, to get their way. They key is to avoid leaving fingerprints all over the trail. Spiers has achieved that.

O’Neill has got his way, Spiers has been in the spotlight with a boost to his subscription levels. His next comment on Celtic and O’Neill is eagerly awaited.

Spiers can take a back seat in the drama. Mission accomplished all round.

Perhaps the veteran Celtic boss will one day open up with at ‘An Evening With Martin O’Neill’.