CELTIC faced the first rumblings of a player revolt last night as the news of Wim Jansen's departure surprised the first-team squad in their Estoril hotel. Paul Lambert admitted: ''I will be speaking to my wife when I go home because I have to think about my future now that Wim is leaving. This is a major blow.''
Jansen told the players yesterday that he would not be with them next season, and while they had indications that his relationship with Jock Brown might lead to this, it still came as a shock. Lambert added: ''It is a disaster. I still can't believe that this can happen so soon after we won the championship.
''This is a kick in the guts for all of us. We have just won a title and then we are told that the coach is leaving. We must be the only club in the world where a coach wins two tournaments out of three and then is allowed to go.
''Obviously we will all miss him but I will miss him particularly because he brought me to Celtic.
''Wim is right up there with the best. At Borussia Dortmund, I won a European Cup medal under Ottmar Hitzfeld and Wim is his equal. I don't know how I feel right now. Celtic have won the championship for the first time in 10 years and then they allow this to happen.''
Lambert was expressing the views of most of the first-team squad here in Portugal for the game against Sporting Club tonight. All of them were stunned that Jansen has been allowed to go and that no efforts were made to keep him.
Tonight, they will play their last game for the Dutchman, without some of their injured players, but with others who believe that they must show him respect in the final game.
Those who have allowed Jansen to walk away could find trouble in the dressing room at a time when the club should simply be celebrating their title success.
It is not just the Celtic players of the present who are upset, former Celtic captain Billy McNeill has slammed the club for not doing more to prevent Jansen from quitting. ''I thought that bringing in a general manager would take pressure from the first-team coach,'' said McNeill. ''More should have been done to sort the situation out some time ago.''
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