John Barnes appeared on "The Jeff Stelling Show" to reflect on his tumultuous 29-game tenure as Celtic manager, where he was ultimately sacked despite a superior win percentage compared to Steven Gerrard's time at Rangers.
"Interestingly, if I tell you that my record at Celtic is better than Steven Gerrard's record at Rangers, a 66% win percentage at Celtic. But of course, when you're managing Celtic, if you finish second and Rangers win the league, you're a failure. And what had happened at Celtic was the disharmony and disunity at Celtic Football Club at that time. Rangers were spending a lot of money, whereas Celtic wasn't. If you look at the previous owners who were there at the time, they had a lot of players on contracts that they weren't happy with. So when I got there, they had them on contracts and the players were unhappy. We won 12 of the first 13 matches and they were still unhappy because of the politics around it. And of course, from the start, as I said, even winning 12 of the first 13 matches, from the second, third, fourth match... I was being given a hard time by the press. I didn't have a relationship with Celtic. You had a lot of Celtic players, names I don't have to mention, who were very powerful in the press with their friends who were not happy. And as I said, 12 of the first 13 matches, nobody wanted them. We were four points behind Rangers and I knew it wasn't going to work because there was just so much unhappiness at the club at that particular time. And I wasn't a big-name manager to be able to handle that. So I remember even saying to my ex-wife now, but a wife at the time, after the first five games don't come up. I'm not going to be here long. I lived in a flat, but I didn't move the family up because I knew that it wasn't going to last because I thought, well, if we are four points behind Rangers and I'm going through this abuse from the media and from the fans because the media are very powerful, then I thought, 'Well, if I go through a sticky patch here, I'm finished.'"
Barnes detailed the specific circumstances that led to his dismissal, including the loss of key players such as Henrik Larsson and Paul Lambert, as well as a contract dispute involving striker Mark Viduka.
Despite winning Manager of the Month in January, the Jamaican-born icon was sacked in February following a period of misfortune that included a 4-2 defeat at Ibrox.