O'Neill Jokes Away As Celtic Implodes

Martin O’Neill is sleepwalking into an absolute nightmare. Cracking gags and sharing witty asides with his media buddies along the way.

Whatever the issue O’Neill will back his bungling Celtic paymasters. That has been proven beyond doubt over the last 10 days.

On Friday Celtic kept O’Neill away from the media conference to preview the glamour friendly with Middlesbrough.

Almost 50,000 Celtic Season Ticket holders opted to stay away from the match. At most around 7-8,000 fans attended the match.

Even day trippers and tourist fans stayed away. The myth of the 20,000 strong Season Ticket Waiting List was confirmed.

After the 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough O’Neill faced Celtic’s invited media friends.

In the room it was top knock-about banter. All the fun of the fair as O’Neill jested with his younger, appreciative audience.

What goes on in Portugal is best kept out of the public eye. Not shared on You Tube after another week of failure at every level of Celtic.

https://youtu.be/aXjT574rUtk

Tellingly there wasn’t a single question relating to the meeting with Irish supporters on July 4.

Confirmation from Nicholson that he can’t do his job.

The evidence of that is on the Celtic team-sheet. A Champions League Play off is a month away. Celtic are miles away.

O’NEILL THE JOKER DEFENDS AND DEFLECTS FROM EXECUTIVE FAILINGS

And yet O’Neill chose to go in and defend the incompetence of his CEO. The man making his job almost impossible.

The CEO that ditched O’Neill in December in favour of Wilfried Nancy. Nicholson provided O’Neill with a January job lot of duds. Yet still the 74-year-old jumps to the defence of his hopeless CEO.

A CEO that has ducked out of introducing the last four Celtic managerial appointments. Read that again. Think about it. There is incompetence and cowardice. The only areas where Nicholson is genuinely world class.

The reactions from Celtic fans were fairly consistent.

Said it once or twice before and I will say it again. When DD assassinated rodgers in his statement there was folk who said why hasnt rodgers replied. Yer watching his reply in 4K surround sound with the sound bar plugged in and turned to 11 and wearing yer 3D glasses.
— 5EN6EI J (@FaeTheYY) July 18, 2026

The utter verbal gymnastics he’s doing to protect this board is gonna wear thin very quickly.
Hes Martin O’Neill, he gets a huge amount of leeway, but stop treating us like idiots. pic.twitter.com/FErvzxn040
— The Celtic Way (@TheCelticWay3) July 18, 2026

On the back of Nicholson’s confession that he can’t do his job he was hit with a double whammy.

Kelechi Iheanacho and Marcelo Saracchi won’t be returning to Celtic.

Eight weeks on from the Scottish Cup Final they are no longer dealing with Celtic’s £17,000 a week tyre-kicker.

The easiest deals of the season. Nicholson has achieved one out of three. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain on a season long contract.

On every issue yesterday O’Neill failed. That was after watching another pre-season friendly with virtually nothing to take from it. For the second game running the new striker scored. Apart from that no-one delivered.

THE CALLUM MCGREGOR ISSUE

Those players returning from the World Cup will be as underwhelmed as Callum McGregor and Arne Engels by what they are working alongside.

O’Neill is either playing dumb or is oblivious to the realities around Celtic.

He put the pitiful crowd down to it being summer and high ticket prices. A year ago 50,000 turned up for a friendly against Newcastle.

O’Neill thinks and is hopeful of new signings coming in. As usual. The fall-back quote. On Tuesday he explained that Nicholson was working day and night on transfers. Maybe he should try phoning agents and returning their calls?

When it came to speaking to Callum McGregor, O’Neill gave his worst answer.

Rather than speak to the club captain about his worries and concerns O’Neill opted for a night on the booze with pals from the Daily Record, Sun and Herald.

O’Neill is hoping to sober up in time to speak to McGregor on Monday or Tuesday.

The media room roared with laughter at that patter. There is another audience that O’Neill needs to address.

Many have already decided that the manager has become part of the problem rather than the solution.

Select Celtic365 as a “Preferred Source” on Google News for prompts to the independent news and opinions that you respect.

2 Comments

by Delbhoy
Posted July 19, 2026 4:08 pm 0Likes
Martin has become very boring in his defence of the board. We won the league just !! Every Celtic supporter knows this team without decent signings is going to fail.and with our rivals spending money while we stand still it’s not looking good.
by johnny murray
Posted July 19, 2026 5:34 pm 0Likes
i know that Martin has shares in Celtic and maybe that is why he is so cosy with the board and Mr. Desmond, He is very foolish if he thinks these people are his friends.
He should put the gun to their head and tell them they need to deliver players within the next few weeks are he will walk away, not that i think the board or D.D. would worry to much.
At least Brendan did the right think and walked away from these ungrateful people Dermot Desmond and the board they have no respect for managers or fans.If any other top club in Britain had employed Nancy the C.E.O. would have been sacked but not Celtic.