Martin O’Neill has been waiting almost six months for the Celtic board to provide him with a permanent signing.
Sunday will mark six months since his second spell as Interim Manager, replacing the chronic Wilfried Nancy on the back of six defeats in eight matches in charge.
In December O’Neill was pushed aside for the Frenchman. Thirty-three days later he was back to try and bail the club out of a mess of their own making.
O’Neill somehow delivered a domestic double.
Celtic weren’t great by any stretch of the imagination. The failings of the other two contenders left the door open.
Very rarely can you lose eight league matches and finish the season as champions.
Seven successive wins to finish the season delivered the title to Celtic. There wasn’t much breathing space in any of those matches.
Only in the May 10 Glasgow Derby did they have a two goal lead going into the 80th minute.
At Motherwell in the second last match it required a 96th minute penalty from Kelechi Iheanacho to secure full points.
O’NEILL AND CELTIC GETTING BY WITH THE FINEST OF MARGINS
Iheanacho won’t be back. He has been missing from pre-season training. A free agent at 29 looking for a new deal, a new club.
Incredibly the As It Stands Celtic squad is weaker than the one that O’Neill inherited in January.
And that is before Michael Nicholson steps up his efforts to monetise Arne Engels and Daizen Maeda.
Celtic fans know from experience that players are sold before replacements are bought. Even with £100m in the bank thanks to the sales of Season Tickets.
Speaking after his first match back, a 4-0 home win over Dundee United on January 10, O’Neill was asked about his transfer hopes:
I am hopeful that we are going to get some people in but just when you think that something might happen, things change around.
It’s not me filibustering, it’s just me feeling that until they’re over the line, I can’t come out and say that it’s happened.
But we obviously need to do it, even just to give help to the boys that are present at the minute because this week — the week’s that just gone in — is the only week we’ve had since I’ve come to the football club that we’ve had a free week.
From here on in we go right through I don’t know how long because we’re going midweek each time so there’ll be no respite and if we pick up injuries to key players we could be in serious trouble.
We need some people in and we are honestly working on it.
It seems that they weren’t working hard enough. No permanent signings were made in January. By and large the January loan deals are best forgotten. Especially Joel Mvuka.
The previous day O’Neill had been given a glimpse of what to expect.
The Sun ran with a very definite story that Celtic were resigning Kyogo Furuhashi. That story quickly crashed. After the way Celtic dealt with the Yang transfer in the summer it’ll be a while before Birmingham waste their time again.
O’NEILL NOW INSTALLED AS PERMANENT CELTIC MANAGER
Celtic announced O’Neill as permanent manager on June 11. Later that day Brian Wilson told Gerry McCulloch about how it was going to be ‘a very active few weeks’.
Three weeks later Celtic are the only SPFL Premiership team that hasn’t made a first team signing.
The first pre-season match is five days away. Against Shelbourne there will be an expectation that O’Neill will speak to the media.
Even the obliging legacy media outlets are bound to ask a few questions that are out of bounds to McCulloch on Celtic TV.
Back in his 2000-2005 reign O’Neill would never have put up with a freeze on recruitment.
He was constantly demanding. Chairman Brian Quinn became newsworthy when a voicemail went public that was highly critical of ‘our esteemed manager’.
Back then O’Neill was a younger, ambitious manager. On the up, heading for the top whether at Celtic or elsewhere.
The 2026 version is different. Whenever he is asked about the running of the club he repeats his gratitude to Dermot Desmond for appointing him as manager in 2000. And coming back again after six years in semi-retirement.
A Non Executive Director shouldn’t have that power at a PLC. After the Scottish Cup Final victory O’Neill mentioned holding talks with the owner about is future. Everyone knew who he had in mind.
No one has more supporter goodwill than O’Neill. But there is a limit.
WILSON AND NICHOLSON LEADING CELTIC INTO DANGER
For the majority of fans there is no way back for the current board headed up by Nicholson and Wilson. They are tolerated, very reluctantly.
O’Neill shielded them from open mutiny last season.
There is a lot of pent up anger and frustration across the Celtic support.
It looks very likely that strengthening the first team squad will be an after thought. Again. A few loan deals and some Tounekti and Balikwisha type transfers in the final 48 hours of the window.
Nicholson or Desmond won’t be doing the pre and post match interviews.
A weakened Celtic is unlikely to get through the Champions League Play Off. If they do the eight match schedule will be unforgiving.
If results go against Celtic domestically the Season Ticket holders won’t be slow in their criticism.
Right now O’Neill holds some power. He can insist on signings, force through improvements.
If he chooses to crack jokes about his age while praising the brilliance of ‘the owner’ he’ll discover that he isn’t immune from the anger of the Celtic support.
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2 Comments
by Terry
I am seriously worried now, no new players in sight, everyone we are supposed to be interested in are going to other clubs. Teams like Kilmarnock have signed 8 players so far and we can’t get 1. It’s a bad state of affairs.
I don’t know what DD promised Martin, but he better get his finger out and start delivering instead of waiting to sell before he buys . What if the clubs that are interested in our players leave it until the last day of the window we will be f**ked
by Ianbhoy1888
Totally agree that MON going about ” his age ” is beginning to grate on me. He comes across sometimes like an old dafty but he’s far from that.
Just drop the fools act , cut the blarney and get us some signings in. Pronto. HH.