Martin O'Neill will be "seething" at the Celtic players after their nightmare Champions League exit, according to his ally Simon Jordan, who reckons the blame for the £40million Euro fumble falls on the squad.
Having held a 4-0 aggregate lead over LASK, the second leg spiralled out of the Scottish champions' control as they fell to a 5-4 defeat over the two legs after extra-time in Linz.
O'Neill shields dressing room
After the game, the 74-year-old took responsibility for the collapse as he shielded the dressing room from stinging criticism, after dropping into the Europa League.
But former Crystal Palace owner Jordan - who regularly worked alongside O'Neill and Jim White on talkSPORT before he returned to Parkhead last term - reckons the gaffer will have a different reaction behind the scenes.
He said: "Martin will be privately seething, realising that the players have let him down. But what he will do as an old school manager is deflect from the players and make it about himself. There's nothing about what Martin did in that dugout that could legislate for a capitulation of that order."
Players shoulder the blame
Jordan ripped into the players for the stunning collapse - insisting that it falls to Callum McGregor and Co to shoulder the ire of the Parkhead punters.
He said: "It was an appallingly cowardly performance. The goal that started the rot was an unforgivable error from one of their players [Benjamin Nygren], just knocking it into space where one of their players can go in and score a goal - which brought them [LASK] back from the dead. And then to concede straight after half-time, you wonder what manager's say to players at half-time that makes them so unresponsive that they go and concede a goal - but I thought it was a dreadful performance.
"I thought it was a dreadful performance and all this nonsense about them getting lucky in the first-leg, I don't hear that narrative being spun out when they won 3-0. All of a sudden, 'They got lucky in the first leg, LASK did have a lot of shots on goal. Their expected xG was three. They didn't score three, they scored zero.
"In this instance you look at the performance, Martin taking the blame… this is not about Martin O'Neill, it's about the players on the field. They didn't buy this player, they sold £36million worth of players and only bought in £32m. And the players off the bench didn't look like they had the wherewithal.
"But it shouldn't have got to the stage where it got to extra-time and players coming off the bench looked lost.
"They were just cowardly, they were 4-0 up in a Champions League qualifier, the game done, they hand them back the initiative giving them one goal and they absolutely capitulated."
