“In this day and age it’s instant results,” Martin O’Neill

Martin O’Neill took a call earlier this morning from Jim White at talkSport, to give his ongoing media colleague an exclusive interview after he was re-appointed as interim manager at Celtic just over a month after stepping aside from the role to make way for Wilfried Nancy.

Nancy was sacked yesterday and as everyone expected Dermot Desmond was on the phone to Martin to secure an agreement that would see him re-take the reins at Celtic until the end of the season with the league title being the immediate priority. There’s also two Europa League matches this month as the group stage comes to a conclusion with Celtic still in the mix to reach the play-offs and of course there’s the Scottish Cup, Celtic’s favourite competition, the one we’ve won the most.

Martin O’Neill gets a second Save Our Season call from Dermot Desmond 

Jim White asked Martin O’Neill about the call from Celtic principal shareholder, on with a second SOS (save our season) plea, this time after getting rid of Nancy. Last time you will recall it was Brendan Rodgers who have been sacked with Desmond subsequently posting a spiteful rant about his fellow Irishman who had won 11 out of 13 domestic trophies he competed for.

“Very similar circumstances again,” Martin said. “Obviously the results just recently for the football club haven’t been great but it was still a bit of a shock and really just similar circumstances as before.” 

O’Neill was asked if there was any hesitation or perhaps thinking ‘I’ve been there, I’ve done that’. He answered: “I think a bit of both. The latter part is something that went through my mind. Yes, been there before and can you come and resurrect it again?

“The same sort of thought process is concerned about whether you can win football matches. Mind you, I’ve had that there for about 30 or 40 years. It is very difficult to say no to the man who put me in charge way back 25 years ago.

“From that viewpoint, you mentioned hesitation, hesitation in the sense of whether you can come back again and win some games. But that’ll obviously be the case.”

Martin the dismissed suggestions that the stay this time could be expended beyond the end of this season into something more permanent. “I would not. I can’t see that for a start and I genuinely can’t. I don’t know whether I would have the energy and all that type of stuff.

“I’ll just put everything into it now for these next couple of months and the same applies to me. If I don’t win football matches I’ll be straight under pressure and that starts here at the weekend.”

Plenty of sympathy for Wilfried Nancy 

On Nancy failing to survive in Glasgow essentially as a result of winning only two matches and losing the rest including defeats at Motherwell and at home to theRangers in the last week, O’Neill had plenty of sympathy for the Frenchman, pointing out he’s been there himself.

“I draw the comparison or the parallel with myself when I went to Leicester City and couldn’t win a game early on in proceedings obviously the crowd were unsettled and it’s difficult at that stage,” O’Neill said.

“I got a little bit of luck. I won a couple of matches away from home in a period of a week. We won two midweek games at Charlton and another game at Crystal Palace and that helped quell things for a while.

“It was difficult and then sometimes when things are going badly it’s very very difficult to pull it round. I got a little bit of luck along the way and you know eight or nine games or whatever it was is not very long at all.

“I know in this day and age for managers the minute they step into a football club they have to win immediately. They know that’s very very difficult to do. Someone that comes in doesn’t know the players. that well has to learn.

“Players have to learn what the manager wants to do. That takes a little bit of time and that’s really unfortunate, but in this day and age it’s instant results.”

On where it went wrong for Nancy, Martin said: “Well that I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know but I know that there were a couple of games that I saw where had they scored the second goal when they’ve taken the lead they could have put the games beyond the opposition and then some the opposition somewhere along the way get an equalising goal and then things happen.

“You lose a little bit of confidence in things like that there. Even last week in theRangers game, Celtic dominated proceedings and scored – they could easily have scored a second goal.

“theRangers goalkeeper made some really great saves. (the)Rangers get back into it in the second half and then confidence drops almost immediately. That’s what happens when you’re not winning football games, players’ confidence no matter how good they are and it seems to disintegrate.”

Progress in the Europa League and the Scottish Cup will be significant targets but the main objective will clearly to win the league from a position of chasing down Hearts who currently have established a six points gap over the two Glasgow giants.

“Don’t I? That has not been something that’s been put to me. We have to try and find it’ll be very very difficult,” Martin said. We’re behind. (the)Rangers have caught up now as well too and so it will be difficult but it is a challenge for us,” MON added.

Transfer backing for a Celtic manager is long overdue from this board but there are indications that that is about to change, although we have seen promises before that end up as excuses from Michael Nicholson & Co. But O’Neill is ready to bring in players in this January window.

“I think that we would have to supplement the squad and in some capacity we would have to do that there if it’s at all possible and that would be something you only have this period of time.

“We all know that January transfer windows are difficult to get the players that you’d probably want to the football club. We do need to supplement it and we’re going to all like to try and do that.”

Martin O’Neill spoke to the mainstream media after training today with the Celtic fan media remaining banned. We will of course back Martin O’Neill and the team as we always do but this week has shown hat the decision makers at the club are the ones needing to be the subject to a review and not the Celtic fan media.

All Books Now Half Price in the Celtic Star Books January Sale…

Both volumes of Celtic in the Thirties are now available on Amazon Kindle, with the links to order below. Signed copies of both volumes are available on hardback from Celtic Star Books and if you would like author Matt Corr to add a special dedication to your copies please let us know. Order hardback copies HERE or for Amazon Kindle click on the links below…

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