Let’s have a look at what was said yesterday as Martin O’Neill returned to Celtic after the dreadful Wilfried Nancy mistake ended in the Frenchman being sacked alongside Celtic’s Head of Football Operations Paul Tisdale. And we’ll give our thoughts on all of this as we look at what’s next for the Celtic Board…
Martin O’Neill – Celtic are lucky to have him
“I am really pleased, in fact, very honoured to be asked back to manage the team again and I am looking forward to getting back to work again with the players.
“I know we would all have hoped for things to have worked out differently under Wilfried and I personally want to wish him good luck with everything he does in the game. He is a fine man and I am sure he will go on and achieve success again, I have no doubt of that.
“For me, I’ve been asked to take this great job on again and my focus will be to try and get us back to winning ways if we can. We will need everyone right behind us.
“We still have a lot to look forward to and a lot to try and achieve, and myself, Shaun and the coaching staff and, of course, the players will be giving everything to achieve all the success we can for the club.”
Speaking to Gerry McCulloch on Celtic TV Martin said: “I’m obviously very pleased and privileged to be back at the football club, but in circumstances like this, with Wilfried leaving the club, that just seems a wee bit strange at this moment.
“We know we’re in a big fight. We’re going to try and win the league. It won’t be easy, although it never is, but we’re halfway through the season, we’ve got a big fight on our hands, so we have to be up to the challenge.”
The Celtic Star: Like Brendan Rodgers, Martin O’Neill is a proper football manager, one that will get the best out of the squad as he already shown is possible this season.
Alarm bells were ringing about Nancy when Martin returned to talkSport after being denied the chance to take charge of Celtic for another week and while we will never know for sure, many supporters believe that cost us a win over Hearts and the Cup Final against St Mirren. He’d also have given Roma a better game too.
On his return to talkSport Martin talked about staying on at Lennoxtown to brief Nancy at the request of the club, yet the incoming Celtic manager spoke to him for just 15 minutes with Nancy doing most of the talking! You are starting the biggest job of your life and you have an iconic figure available to guide you – you’d think he’s have wanted 15 hours hearing from Martin including his insight into the players he had been managing so successful in the weeks running up to Nancy’s appointment.
Martin left as the Manager of the Month for November before Nancy had the month from hell in December, losing the support at Tannadice and also the dressing room – things that will never happen to Martin at Celtic.
It turned out that even Brendan didn’t have the gravitas or the status to stand up to the Celtic Board and their punts and projects signings policy, gambling that they will unearth another Matt O’Riley or Nicolas Kuhn so that they can cash in. That’s what it’s all about to them. Martin will want players to improve the team and he is crafty enough to know he now has a strong hand.
Where this leave Celtic is that a football manager might be able to select and recruit players of his own choosing. Martin’s primary target is to win the league. If he fails that’s not on him it’s on the men we’ll discuss below and they know it as well as we do.
Next up – Celtic’s interim Chairman Brian Wilson.
Did the fan media not put their names to the” collective” letter , statement , or whatever it was? I wouldn’t have let them in either tbh.