Well what a difference a week makes. We have gone from the depths of disappear having lost at home to a bog standard theRangers side and being stuck with a manager who was so far out of his depth it was almost unbelievable, to the highs of easily swatting aside a Dundee United side who beat us only a couple of weeks ago and now looking at our current manager and thinking that this season is far from over.
Joy to watch Celtic yesterday
That was a joy to watch yesterday. Was it an amazing performance? No, but it didn’t have to be. It was straight forward. It was stress free. It was everything the past month hasn’t been.
Heading in to that match yesterday we would have all have been happy with the three points, no matter how they were attained. In the end these Celtic players, who have looked so out of sorts these past few weeks, finally started playing to their capabilities, scored four goals and more importantly kept a clean sheet for the first time since our current manager was last in the dugout against Dundee at the start of December.
Martin O’Neill has returned to much love and adulation from the Celtic support
Martin O’Neill has returned to much love and adulation from the Celtic support. He has answered the call to be Celtic’s saviour once again. His legendary status continues to increase, and there is absolutely no doubt he deserves great credit.
The funny thing however is that Martin O’Neill isn’t the second coming of Christ. He isn’t some managerial genius. What he is is a damn good manager, an experienced one, who knows that football is actually a rather simple game. He knows the number one rule of managing a football team, any team in fact, is that you play to it’s strengths. He did that yesterday and look at the results.
Telling insight into the Nancy fiasco
Most of you will have read the article from Stephen McGowan in The Herald during the week, detailing the inside scoop of Nancy’s tenure at Celtic. It was an interesting read, although none of it was actually that surprising.
The performances on the pitch told you everything you needed to know. It was as plain as day that the players were struggling to adapt to what he wanted from them. He tried to change too much, too soon. These players didn’t become duds overnight. They were just struggling to perform in a system that was alien to them, under a manager who expected too much of them.
Martin O’Neill has gone back to basics
Martin O’Neill has simply gone back to basics, just like he did after replacing Brendan Rodgers. Use a formation the players are familiar with. Play your best players in the positions most suited to them.
Give them instructions before the game and let this group of experienced players apply those instructions on the pitch. No need to constantly bring them to the sidelines to fill their heads with more information. No need for tactics boards or notepads. Let them get on with things and focus on playing what is essentially a pretty simple game.
Martin’s backroom team deserves plenty of credit
This is what Martin O’Neill brings. Simplicity. Authority. Trust. His backroom team deserves plenty of credit too. You can see how much happier the players are around them, compared to Nancy’s coaches.
The players look like they are enjoying their football again and that’s what matters. Our squad is weaker than in previous seasons, there’s no doubt about that. We also have a quite extensive injury list, to key players.
We still have the best squad in Scotland however. If we play to the best of our capabilities we should still win the league this season. With Martin O’Neill in charge, steering the ship out of troubled waters, I firmly believe we will.
Yesterday was exactly what we needed. Three points were vital. The performance was an added bonus.
No visible scars from Nancy fiasco
Watching that game you would never had known the horrors of the previous month and that’s perhaps the most important thing to come out of yesterday. There were no visible scars. The players seem to have their confidence back already.
Playing to your strengths under a system that everyone understands and trusts will do that. These players look up for the fight. I have no doubts there will be a few more bumps in the road along the way but under this current management team I have no doubt they will bounce straight back.
After a month that will go down in Celtic history for all the wrong reasons, this finally felt like we had the real Celtic back.
Long may it continue.
Conall McGinty
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Good article. I’ve spent the past 4 weeks pointing out that Martin is not the messiah, and we rode our luck in a few games in his last spell, but that was great to watch yesterday, go Martin!. Got to agree with everything you said, in spite of my doom mongering 😁
Think that “Respect ” is possibly the best word, to describe what MoN brings back into our club imo.
The whole club has a total feeling around it, even if many issues aren’t resolved by any means yet.
Regardless, as a football club, always feel that the relationship between players and a management team, has to be the strongest for a successful club to operate, properly in playing terms imo?
Even at that, we are still looking at massive footballing decisions, that have to be taken, during January?
Along with trying to get our season back on track.
Plenty of unity shown yesterday in that regards, which was the most welcoming of sights, upon the park. Especially with the returning enjoyment within our play again.
MoN took ourselves in a massive step forward yesterday, despite the Nancy experiment taking ourselves backwards.
And a great performance and result, doesn’t mean everything is resolved in our playing squad either?
But with the levels of respect MoN brings into our club again, would like to think that our season might be only truly beginning, eventually imo?