Chilled out Martin O’Neill prepares for Celtic exodus

Martin O’Neill seems quite relaxed about seeing the Celtic midfield wiped out.

The Celtic boss has been speaking to the club’s media partners over the weekend at their training centre in the Algarve.

The Daily Record, Sun and Herald have all been invited into the tent to speak with O’Neill and first team players.

So far James Forrest and Cameron Carter-Vickers have been talking to three publishers that went out of their way to tarnish Celtic’s 25/26 SPFL title win.

There was hysteria from the win over Motherwell after Sam Nicholson handled the ball after elbowing Auston Trusty in the face.

The views of Kris Boyd, Ally McCoist and Derek McInnes were taken as gospel although none of them had been at Fir Park.

Matchday 37 was just the warm up.

Celtic’s title win over Hearts utterly destroyed those three legacy publishers.

From the missing minutes to Hearts players being assaulted on the pitch the Record, Sun and Herald went all in.

Things got so bad that on Meltdown Day 5 the SFA were forced into releasing the audio from referee Don Robertson.

Not one legacy outlet backed down or apologised.

Celtic Communications Chief Iain Jamieson has rolled out the red carpet for his old newspaper friends.

O’NEILL OPENS UP ON LIKELY CELTIC EXIT

They have gone easy on O’Neill. Such as not asking why Michael Nicholson is still phoning the agents of Marcelo Sarachi and Kelechi Iheanacho seven weeks after the Scottish Cup Final.

For publication today we discovered that O’Neill is quite chilled over losing four players- three of them midfielders.

Separate to that O’Neill has admitted that he will need to talk to Callum McGregor about his future. A change of agent would suggest that McGregor might have had enough of Celtic downsizing.

ARNE ENGELS

O’Neill said:

If, for instance, all those bids that Nottingham Forest made come in on the 11th hour – that was just a non-goer for us at that particular stage. So if some things can happen a bit earlier, then maybe there’s some resignation on my part.

The return of Engels towards the end of last season coincided with Celtic’s winning run to the double.

By far the youngest midfielder at the club he has been heavily criticised on the back of his transfer fee.

The profit from selling Engels will help offset writing off the money wasted last summer on Michel Ange Balikwisha. Sebastian Tounekti, Shin Yamada and Hayato Inamura.

REO HATATE

O’Neill said:

I think that Reo has done exceptionally well at the football club since he arrived. People have said he might even have been the best player in Scotland two or three years ago. I think myself that he’s probably looking to maybe see if there’s new pastures for him.

When you drop out of the Celtic matchday squad for the final two matches of the season that decision has been made for you.

Hatate is a matchwinner. He transformed Celtic when he appeared as a half-time substitute at Ibrox to earn a 2-2 draw in the SPFL.

A week later he stood up to taking a penalty in the Scottish Cup shoot-out. He converted past Jack Butland. Hatate is a better player than Celtic’s Japanese interpreter.

O’NEILL ON DAIZEN MAEDA

O’Neill said:

I think there’s some resignation in that aspect. It isn’t one of those where he’s got a year left to run and we want to try and make something of it in the sense of getting money.

It’s not that at all. Personally speaking, I would love it if he just let his contract run through. And played for the last year.

Michael Nicholson will have very different thoughts.

After failing to sell Maeda last summer getting a fee for the Japanese striker will be his transfer priority.

Maeda ended last season as Celtic’s best striker and left winger. O’Neill will be needing two replacements for the loss of the former Yokohama F Marinos forward

BEN NYGREN

O’Neill said:

His stats are very, very high, absolutely. So there’s every possibility that something could happen there.

Nygren’s goal contribution kept Celtic in the hunt for the SPFL title.

He didn’t contribute much else but who did more than the Swede over the season.

Arriving at a club determined to undermine their manager is a tough task. Had Nygren arrived in the summer of 2022 to the side Ange Postecoglou was building he would almost certainly be viewed in a different light.

CONCLUSION

Celtic played with fire last season and survived to win the domestic double.

Window by window the quality and depth of the squad has deteriorated. Matt O’Riley, Kyogo Furuhashi, Nicolas Kuhn and Adam Idah haven’t been replaced.

Maeda and Hatate have stayed on despite losing their edge.

Other than Nygren there has been no adequate replacements brought into the club.

Seven weeks on from the Scottish Cup Final Celtic have added just Camilo Duran to their squad.

The SPFL opener is three weeks away, the Champions League Play Off a further two weeks away.

O’Neill Version 1 from 2000 to 2005 would have been kicking up all sorts over watching a squad being taken apart with no sign of replacements coming in.

Only O’Neill can explain his laid back approach as Nicholson builds towards another car crash of a season.