Jackson reckons MON is caught in the midst of a civil war at Celtic? It’s gone way beyond that now…

Well, well, well.

Even Keith Jackson has finally caught up.

The very same Stenography Corps that spent the last decade telling us everything was rosy in the Celtic garden has suddenly discovered that the garden is, in fact, on fire.

Better late than never, I suppose.

In his latest offering for the Daily Record, Jackson has stumbled upon the shocking revelation that Martin O’Neill might just be caught in the middle of a ‘civil war’ at Celtic.

A civil war, Keith?

Bless him.

Let me get this straight, because this is important.

A civil war implies there are two sides, roughly matched, slugging it out for control.

That isn’t what’s happening here.

What’s happening here is a slow, deliberate demolition of our football club by a despot dictator and his useless cabal of minions, while the rest of us stand in the rubble screaming into the void.

It’s gone way beyond a civil war.

This is a regime in its death throes.

But hey, at least Keith noticed something, and for that we should be eternally grateful, shouldn’t we?

Here’s the bit that made me sit up, though.

Or, is he a complicit co-conspirator in Celtic’s self-inflicted decline and in danger of being regarded as some sort of Dermot Desmond stooge?

Stop the bus.

Did Keith Jackson, of all people, just type the words ‘Dermot Desmond stooge’ into a Daily Record column?

I must be dreaming.

Because this is the exact point I made in my article last week, when I said that St. Martin the Hunskelper runs the risk of torching his own reputation by ‘trusting the process’ at Celtic.

Astonishingly, I actually agree with him.

The great galvaniser is now in real danger of being remembered as the man who held the door open for the arsonists.

Jackson puts it like this.

Is the great galvaniser now at risk of being pigeon holed as some sort of enabler for a busted flush of a board?

Yes, Keith.

Yes, he is.

And the reason I know this, is because I’ve been saying it for a fortnight while you were still filing copy about how the ceasefire was holding.

Let’s look at the ‘civil war’ Jackson thinks O’Neill is stuck in the middle of.

Eight weeks into the window, and we have signed one player.

One.

Yes, one.

Camilo Duran, a Colombian attacker, plucked from the footballing hotbed of Azerbaijan for around £6 million smackers.

Two goals in two friendlies, fair play to the lad.

But if he really did cost us £6 million, then the absent meddling golfer has almost certainly treble bogeyed on an easy par 3 out in Barbados, and is currently reaching for the beta blockers.

Meanwhile, Kasper Schmeichel has hung up his gloves, half the squad has scattered to the four winds, and Daizen Maeda, Arne Engels and Reo Hatate are apparently turning up at Lennoxtown to empty their lockers.

Callum McGregor is dropping heavy hints that he’ll be off unless the men running the club match his ambition.

Anybody fancy placing a bet that they won’t?

I’ll wait.

And then, of course, there’s the small matter of Kelechi Iheanacho.

The player the manager himself assumed was walking back through the door.

A one-year option, theirs for the taking, and Silent Mike couldn’t even manage that.

As I laid out yesterday, the £47k wage demand was never the real reason he ended up at Bursaspor, whatever lies our club fed to their media partners.

Jackson calls the whole thing a ‘layer of farce’.

For once, he’s underselling it.

Because this isn’t farce, Keith.

Farce is an accident.

This is engineered.

None of the men on the Celtic board are stupid, and none of them are incompetent, whatever the SMSM would have you believe.

They are being made to look that way, deliberately, by a bitter old fart who no longer cares about the damage he’s doing to Glasgow Celtic.

Last season, Brendan Rodgers said he’d been handed the keys to a Honda Civic and told to drive it like a Ferrari.

This season, Martin O’Neill has been handed the keys to a Toyota Aygo, and told to drive it like a Honda Civic.

That, folks, is the ‘civil war’ Keith Jackson has just discovered.

Here’s the line in his piece that he actually got spot on, and I have to give credit where credit is due.

And the danger is that reverence turns into resentment.

Now that is a sentence, Keith.

Reverence into resentment.

Because make no mistake, that is exactly the road we are hurtling down.

The man salvaged a title in the 94th minute of the final day and added a cup for good measure, at 74 years of age, and this is how he’s being repaid.

Not with backing.

Not with a squad fit for purpose.

But with one solitary signing and a fax machine that Silent Mike has generously had reconditioned.

The season opener is two weeks away.

The Champions League qualifiers loom in mid August, a competition we are utterly ill-prepared for.

And the man who nearly Heartsed the title off us last season has taken his talents, and two of his best players, across the city to Ibrox.

So no, Keith.

O’Neill isn’t caught in the middle of a civil war.

There is no war left to fight.

One side has already surrendered the club, and it’s the side sitting in the boardroom, rubbing its hands with glee.

The rest of us just want our club back.

Welcome to the story, Keith.

We’ve been here a while.

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