Davie Provan believes that last night's defeat from St Mirren was Tony Mowbray's Caley Thistle moment.
Mowbray's brief Celtic career is strangely familiar to that of Barnes with neither men able to adapt to the demands of managing the club or capable of surviving a full season.
He told Sky Sports: "The St Mirren result last night was to Tony Mowbray what the Caley Thistle result was to John Barnes ten years ago. In many respects last night was the straw that broke the camel's back.
"Last night's result was symptomatic of how Celtic have been set up under Tony. He's brought some very decent attacking players to the club from midfield forward, they have been easy on the eye, the arrival of Robbie Keane in particular has been terrific for supporters to go and watch.
"But he has never really addressed the defence and as recently as the last Old Firm game at Ibrox which they lost Celtic found themselves where they had two teenage centre-backs going into that game.
"At a time when a more experienced centre back, Stephen McManus, who was club captain as recently as last season, was down on loan at Middlesbrough.
"In my opinion I don't think that Tony got it right at the back. Many of us have great respect for the way that he wanted to see the game played.
"There is no surprise that Celtic have taken the action that they have- now it's a matter of where they go from here."
Neil Lennon's appointment as caretaker was the obvious choice for the club to make with steering the team to success in the Scottish Cup the target.
Longer term the board face the difficult task of appointing the next manager for a job that no longer carries the appeal that it once did.
While managing Celtic still has obvious attractions the £1m+-a-year deals available for managing in the Premiership are hard to compete with.
Recent appointments have all come from England but Provan believes that finding a candidate with sufficient stature to make a success of the job won't be easy.
He added: "It's fair to say that the job does not at the moment hold the type of appeal that it had when Martin O'Neill came to Glasgow.
"As recently as this summer both Owen Coyle and Roberto Martinez were approached to come to Celtic Park and neither wanted to take up the challenge.
"It's going to be very difficult for Celtic to identify a top class manager to fill Tony Mowbray's decision.
"I don't think that Neil (Lennon) will be a serious candidate for the job in the long term although I would hope that he could become part of the coaching staff on going.
"Celtic have time on their side but they don't want to leave it too long, you have to remember that they are likely to be playing Champions League qualifiers before the end of July.
"They shouldn't leave it too long. They have to identify somebody in the reasonable short term, let that person know what their budget is so that they can go and identfify players for the summer months.
"That's when Peter Lawwell has to do his job and get the players that the new man will identify to give him a chance to hit the ground running ahead of those Champions League qualifiers."
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