No Love Without Pain

The summer of stasis trundles on, but there might be some space for reasonable consideration.

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”

Sherlock Holmes (“The Sign of Four”, by Arthur Conan Doyle)

With the speculation fuelled by Graham Spiers article today on his patreon site, I just wanted to quickly expand on what was discussed on yesterday’s Huddle Breakdown podcast.

Spiers is wondering whether Martin O’Neill will walk away from his recently agreed one year contract at Celtic due to the ongoing delay in toeing up his assistants Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham.

This is noteworthy as Spiers claims to be on good terms with O’Neill. Some are interpreting this as a shot across Celtic’s bows by the frustrated Irishman.

Such are the long-held frustrations, mainly justified, by many in the support towards the performance of the board of directors, and in particular major shareholder and seeming controlling party Dermot Desmond, that any issue tends towards a polarising reaction.

Those critical of the board will seize on this as further evidence of Desmond meddling, the club nickel and diming key staff, and the ineffectiveness of executives to perform basic functions.

I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with elements of any of that but as I said on the pod, based on approximately 5% information, 15% public data and 80% following the famous Sherlock Holmes maxim quoted above, there is always nuance.