Martin O’Neill arrives at Easter Road, Sunday 30 November 2025. Hibs v Celtic, Scottish Premiership. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)
Q: Given the success you’ve had here, Martin, your first spell, and also when you came back recently, how much is this going to give the squad, the players, the club, a boost by you returning?
Martin O’Neill: “I’ve got to tell you, I’m very anxious about it, as I’ve always been, but I’m anxious, maybe in a sort of excited way, but yeah, I’m anxious, but that’s me, I’ve got dreadful insecurity problems!”
Q: You said the last time it was a fear of failure that you were worried about, is that the same thing?
Martin O’Neill: “Same thing again, yeah, absolutely. I’d like to try and win if I can, and you’ve got 18 games, or hopefully 18 games, yeah, so I would try and win.”
Q: Martin, what’s your message to the fans? Obviously before you left, there was the AGM, a lot of protests, things have possibly got worse since then, what would be your message to the fans?
Martin O’Neill: “Well, after that AGM, and I know I joked with you and said I won’t be back for the next AGM, that would be an absolute certainty anyway! I’m never sure that messages from me to the fans mean a great deal, it doesn’t really. I would want to win, naturally, very selfishly I’d like to win for me. I’d like to win for the players, and I’d obviously like to win for the football club, and the football club is the fans.”
Q: Just one on the transfers again, you said Shaun’s doing some work in the background, so just to be clear, will there be a case of Shaun and the team identifying players and then presenting them to you?
Martin O’Neill: “I think there’s a part of that, yes, yes. I may have to rely on Shaun’s judgement, and Fozzy’s judgement on certain things, yeah, I might have to, and that would be a problem! No, that might be the case, but I will certainly have a look at the players before they come in, in some capacity, but not just shots of them in, like proper matches, even if you go through the 90 games, but that’s my job, so I’ll have to try and do that, but more quickly than before.”
