O’Neill finally turns the heat up on clueless Nicholson

In his roundabout way Martin O’Neill has promised that Celtic WILL spend big before the transfer window closes.

Most fans will remain sceptical of the claim. Knowing Michael Nicholson’s track record on transfers it is quite a leap of faith to see the gormless CEO finally do his job competently.

Celtic have needed a striker, or two since January 2025.

A year ago tomorrow they played a Champions League tie at Villa Park with Daniel Cummings as the back up striker to Adam Idah. Cummings made his one and only first team appearance that night.

A month later there was Bayern Munich away. Since then it has been downhill all the way with Nicholson going through manager at quite a rate with none getting the required backing from the club branded as the best run in Europe by their legacy media partners.

One look at the substitute bench in Thursday’s match against Utrecht should kick that idea firmly into touch.

DIPLOMATIC O’NEILL IS NO PATSY

Since returning as interim manager on January 5 O’Neill has been forced to try and get the maximum out of a core group of 14 players.

Against Utrecht he won’t be able to call on Julian Araujo or Reo Hatate. His options are shrinking.

It was always too late to sign players for the group matches in the Europa League but with five trading days left of the transfer window O’Neill has not been backed.

At media conferences he has deflected with ease from the softball questions.

Those in attendance need to get a transfer soundbite for their employer, O’Neill obliges and fans are left none the wiser.

Rumours persist that the interim boss is privately furious at what he has been dropped into but at 73 years of age O’Neill appears to be a company man.

Don’t expect him to rock the boat but you never know, Nicholson’s boozy antics in Bologna might just have pushed the Irishman to the very brink.

The broadcast media conference for the Utrecht match went through that box ticking formality of some transfer quotes.

PAPER TALK

Separately O’Neill sat down with newspapers. With the cameras switched off he seemed more forthcoming on his January spending expectations.

The Daily Record reports O’Neill saying:

It is to do with the idea that first of all, you need to get players. Who is to say we might not spend money? There is a willingness. If you’re getting help, then the forces are elsewhere.

We can only do so much if somebody gets, let’s say we had a number of players that we were interested in. I think we’ll get some in. The days are pressing, but I am hopeful.

O’Neill added:

Trust me on this one. There is not a division. I’m trying to see what we can get. Some of the players that we thought were set up as things that we could do, haven’t for one reason or another materialised.

If you have a set of players that you think this is it, this is your A list and there’s a B list, I’m not so sure that you want to be going down to an F list you know, which stands for a lot of things, you know.

So I don’t really want that. I can get some people in. There’s some things that you thought, ‘yeah that’s really good and looks great’ and 25 minutes later something changes like a price or somebody else comes in.

Or, believe it or not, clubs with bigger assets in that sense. But Celtic is Celtic. I’m still very hopeful.

CAN NICHOLSON FINALLY DELIVER?

As ever there is a bit of everything in O’Neill’s comments. He does however raise a degree of expectation that worthwhile business will be completed before the window closes on Monday.

Nicholson should take careful note.

Celtic have three home matches over the next 10 days.

Most fans are just hoping that rumours of his exit have some truth. That somewhere there is a company looking for a ‘leading sports lawyer’ with no personality, impact or presence.

There are still some happy clappers that believe in the second worst CEO in the history of Celtic. Even just for them Nicholson ought to give a living legend a fighting chance to sign off with an SPFL title win.