Martin O’Neill has got Celtic back into the title race not once but twice this season…
As the three title contenders face their last eight games Derek McInnes at Hearts and Danny Rohl at the Rangers will have good reason to fear the impact that the 74 year old interim Celtic manager has had on one of the most remarkable seasons in Scottish football history.
If you look at how the Scottish Premiership table would look at the moment if you only consider the games that Martin O’Neill has been in the dugout as Celtic manager then you can see why the veteran Irish coach is a cause for major concern for his title rivals.
The table would look quite different if only the round of matches where Martin O’Neill was Celtic manager counted. According to piperspin, Martin O’Neill’s Celtic would be top on 38 points, the Rangers would be second seven points adrift on 31 points, Motherwell would be third on 29 points and current Scottish Premiership leaders Hearts would be fourth on 26 points.
And with Martin O’Neill in charge of the Champions for the title run-in that table is perhaps more significant than it may seem as it shows O’Neill’s momentum and clearly shows that Hearts has benefited from the two spells of atrocious form suffered by the two Glasgow giants earlier in the season.
Under Russell Martin at the start of the campaign the Rangers were a shambles and had they lost at Livingston after a terrible start they could have been rock bottom of the Scottish Premiership.
Then after the Celtic Board manoeuvred Brendan Rodgers out the door, Martin O’Neill came in to steady the ship and did very well before the highly paid suits at Celtic Park reckoned that French coach from MLS side Columbus Crew was the man to take Celtic to the next stage. That was a 33 day hellish experience with Nancy losing seven games from nine, including a Cup Final against St Mirren and dropping a dozen points to give the Hearts fans a brilliant Christmas present.
After losing to the Rangers at the start of January, Nancy was sent packing and Dermot Desmond, Celtic’s controlling shareholder, once again reached out to Martin O’Neill to Save Our Season.
On Saturday Celtic defeated an impressive Motherwell side before Hearts lost at Kilmarnock. On Sunday the Rangers scrapped past St Mirren in Paisley with a 1-0 win. The result mattered more than the performance which was awful.
Celtic are now two points behind Hearts, with the Rangers a point further adrift of the leaders, who have had their lead and possibly their confidence cut dramatically. In the remaining eight matches both Hearts and the Rangers have to travel to Celtic Park, while the Rangers have to play at Tynecastle as well.
The momentum certainly seems to be with Celtic who will have Arne Engels and Alistair Johnston back in the coming weeks to add real quality to the title push.
The other factor worth mention is experience. Martin O’Neill knows how to win titles as Celtic manager from his iconic five year period in charge starting in season 2000-01 when he won a treble.
And the current Celtic squad has plenty of title winners in its ranks including of course the likes of the Celtic captain Callum McGregor, Celtic’s most decorated player of all time James Forrest and Kieran Tierney who enjoyed incredible success at Celtic before making a £25m move to Arsenal five years ago.
Celtic has won the title for 13 of the past 14 seasons, the only exception being the Covid season when supporters weren’t allowed to attempt games.
In contrast James Tavernier, the Rangers captain is the only player in either of Celtic’s two title rivals to have won a title and that was during the Covid season when the pressure from the stands was absent and without that the Rangers won the league in a canter.
So everything points to a Martin O’Neill title triumph, not that he’ll consider this likely himself. The bookies a few days ago had Hearts as evens favourites, with Celtic at 2/1 and the Rangers at 7/4. Tellingly Celtic are now 10/11 favourites, with Rangers out to 11/4 and former market leaders Hearts now available at 2/1.
They are clearly are thinking along similar lines to ourselves.
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Don’t shoot the messenger but Nancy did lose 4 league games =12 points dropped, but he also won 2 league games = 6 points won.
The problem was 2 of those losses were v huns and diet huns.
The other 2 games were LC final and v Roma in EL.
He was by far the worst man we’ve ever had in the dug oot. Well done the board!
There’s no denying the fact of MoN and his background staff, have managed to salvage our season to date.
Not confirmed just yet, if it will provide a successful return, trophy wise, but nothing to suggest that it won’t be either at present?
Still believe, Rodgers reached the maximum levels of the core group within our squad, in Munich last season, and was heading downhill since then imo? Not unusual within the managerial world, as it’s becoming far more common these days within the footballing world.
What isn’t getting enough notice, is that MoN took on the position, with a core group within our squad, consisting of 13 players, we thought would have been available for any potential title run in, back in September. Included Paulo and jota within my own 13 man core group within our squad.
Class core players, as one’s we would like available within most of our 20man SPFL match day squads. This hasn’t been the case for the best part of our season.
Currently getting results with 7/8 players missing from a match day squad, which turns out to be 35/40% of our supposedly match day squad unavailable?
Personally still believe, that very few managers, would have been able to overcome such a situation in operation, especially within this modern era imo?
Had to make huge decisions, but getting the levels of response from players, is a massive factor for any manager. MoN has that trait in abundance, possibly moreso than ever before imo?
A renewed energy and desire is on show now, that has been missing for large chunks of this season.
With such a depleted core group within our squad, it has required others to step up, and fill such a void.
May not have been pretty at times, but winning results is the name of the game now, for the remainder of this season.
With players and management working well together at present, along with our support getting back on side again. We are still the most formidable force to be reckoned with in Scottish football.
Does MoN take the greatest credit at present?
I personally think so anyway