Martin O’Neill has pleaded with the Celtic board to make peace with angry fans and shareholders.
A seven match stint as interim boss is expected to end for the Irishman at Easter Road on Sunday.
Compared to his first stint as manager the mood around the club is very different.
Sure there was a fall out with Brian Quinn sarcastically referring to ‘our esteemed manager’ in a phone call that went wrong.
THE SLOW LANE
O’Neill wasn’t slow to warn about life in the slow lane, when he left Celtic in May 2005 the profile of Peter Lawwell suddenly rose.
Since O’Neill left, Celtic the club haven’t won a knock-out tie in any UEFA competition. David Marshall and John Kennedy starred in that memorable stalemate in Barcelona in March 2004.
Life in the slow lane hasn’t been too bad.
O’Neill faced upto a Rangers team consisting almost entirely of players that were ineligible.
LIQUIDATION
Side letters, EBTs and off shore trusts were set up to compete with Celtic. That died in 2012. The landscape was forever changed.
Celtic fans are grateful for domestic success, every trophy lift is celebrated in full.
But there is a bigger picture that Lawwell and Michael Nicholson won’t embrace. Europe.
The changing football landscape referenced last week by Ross Desmond makes life easier for Celtic. Not more difficult.
Eight Champions League games a season is very possible, four against clubs that are of a similar level. Or smaller.
EUROPEAN OUTLOOK
Last season Celtic supporters got a taste for it. They liked it. Twelve points, five sell-out home matches and a competitive team on the park.
Punching above their weight against Bayern Munich, Atalanta and RB Leipzig. Punching at their weight to win against YB Bern and Slovan Bratislava. Honourable draws with Club Brugge and Dinamo Zagreb.
That run was driven by the ambition of Brendan Rodgers. It didn’t sent Celtic towards liquidation. The hopes and promise of last year has been destroyed by the Celtic board.
As well as a dysfunctional Academy, bizarre recruitment strategy, non-existent communications and a neglected stadium the board have applied the handbrake on ambition. Unforgivably.
RESIGNATION
Relations with Rodgers disintegrated from the sale of Kyogo Furuhashi in January.
They snapped on October 27. Rodgers resigned, O’Neill arrived as interim boss alongside Shaun Maloney.
Inside the stadiums chanting has been split between adulation for O’Neill and criticism of the Celtic board.
Those emotions were evident at the AGM last Friday. It was a side of Celtic that O’Neill never encountered first time around.
11 minutes
I’d like, having been brought into the AGM, I would like, in retrospect, for questions to be asked in a manner that would have made the board answer.
Whether that would have given the answers on that particular day I don’t know. I don’t know enough.
What I do know is that Celtic, a Celtic united would be a far, far better club than one disunited. That’s obvious for anyone.
It’s not really what Celtic is about, it’s not what Brother Walfrid brought in, and it’s certainly not what Jock Stein did.
Jock Stein would have been the first one to say, ‘Sorry, boys, we’ve got to get this together. We’ve got to be unified.’
GOING FORWARD
What I think will happen. Celtic will come back, they will compete properly in Europe. We’ve all made mistakes, that (Europe) I think should be the aim of this football club.
Yes, domestically we’ve been very, very strong but you want to be strong in European football because that’s what was said in 1967. That, I’m afraid what it is all about.
Are we at this minute? We’re not, Midtjylland taught us a lesson. It was nice last night to restore some of that. That might be a sign, qualification, it would be nice to get through to the knock-out stage. It would be nice, it would be a start.
Mark my words, we’ll be back to being properly involved in European football.
It is doubtful if O’Neill’s call for unity is heard in the Celtic boardroom. Not Another Penny will sadly be more effective than the wise words of an iconic manager who strove for the same levels as the manager that he replaced.
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