That statement has revived the Celtic support. Given the Collective fresh fuel. The Collective is a rallying point for supporter anger.
Critically the ground was laid for signing Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate before McKay mysteriously left on September 10. He delivered the Gold Standard in transfer windows. Highlighted by every transfer window conducted by Nicholson.
Jordan Lotomba was given 10 minutes at Ibrox and lived up to the billing given to him by Feyenoord fans. Tony Ralston has came off the bench in the two defeats since.
Being appointed as Non-Executive Directors by the current board isn’t the best of starts.
Even if NAP was suspended or dropped there is a significant number of fans that will continue to minimise their Celtic spending.
Will he want to sit down and plan his strategy with a CEO who had to leave the room to get permission to spend another £100,000 to recruit Luke McCowan?
And if Nicholson and Wilson cannot do it — if they cannot find the courage to confront violence, bias, and injustice — then Celtic must find leaders who will.
And with that O’Neill knew that he was in a corner. He didn’t have a gag or a wacky aside to excuse serial failure. He faced a relevant follow up question. A rarity.
And with that failure comes the consolation of playing in the Europa League group stages – an achievement Nicholson will no doubt highlight in the future when accusations of lacking ambition are levelled at him again.
The directors who run Celtic have built a culture where loyalty to each other outweighs loyalty to Celtic. Decisions are made not on merit, not on strategy, not on ambition — but on preserving the hierarchy.