Celtic's wizard can't keep casting spells - Martin O'Neill now needs those around him to step up
A big piece of Celtic jigsaw is in place - but picture is far from complete
The everlasting Martin O’Neill show goes on at Celtic. The 74-year-old is set return to the east end of Glasgow for a third time after news broke on Friday evening that the Northern Irishman has agreed a contract for next season.
O’Neill met principal shareholder Dermot Desmond earlier this week and is understood to have told the businessman and Celtic kingmaker that he wanted his reign to continue. After answering Desmond’s SOS calls not once but twice last season, concurring was the least the Irish financier could do.
Under O’Neill, Celtic ended the 2025/26 campaign in spectacular fashion. They won their final nine matches to pip Hearts at the post in the Premiership title race and then defeated Dunfermline Athletic to win the Scottish Cup. In a season where so much went wrong, O’Neill got it right.
Brendan Rodgers’ resignation last October and then the cataclysmic 33-day tenure of Wilfried Nancy over the festive period threatened Celtic with a rare barren season. It is to O’Neill’s enormous credit that he galvanised a sinking ship and coaxed his players over the line to a double.
O’Neill wasn’t shy in telling the media that the likelihood of him hanging around beyond May was slim - but his stance did soften towards the end of the campaign. He is a self-confessed football addict and the bug has clearly bitten him once more.
Not in his wildest dreams did this time last year O’Neill think he would be a football manager again. His last posting was with Nottingham Forest in 2019, when Covid-19 wasn’t even an apple in society’s eye. He was yesterday’s man. A very successful man, but yesterday’s man nonetheless.
Which is why his powers in the dugout require so much admiration. O’Neill has always been more of a motivator than a coach, but he has done so well to fit into the modern game - a game he often derides.
He has also been ably supported by his assistant coach Shaun Maloney, and Mark Fotheringham, who undoubtedly do a lot of the tactical work. As a team, they operate well and the aforementioned duo should join O’Neill in forming the senior management group.
Popular with the players, O’Neill has been able to make them feel powerful again. Anyone who claims Celtic were fortunate with VAR calls at the end of the season cannot be churlish enough to dismiss the run O’Neill’s team put together to reel in long-time league leaders Hearts.
O’Neill brings unity to Celtic
O’Neill also did something that many have recently failed to do at Celtic Park: bring unity. A club addled by disharmony for most of the past 12 months, the Northern Irishman had by the end of the season the stadium like it was during is his first tenure between 2000 and 2005.
The trick will be now maintaining such levels of togetherness.
Desmond’s detractors - and there are many - will label the decision to stick with O’Neill as lazy and short-sighted. Celtic have had months to come up with a younger model, yet decided to settle on the Northern Irishman. That much is true but in a world of constant speculation, not many names came to the fore. Celtic spoke to Robbie Keane, admired Craig Bellamy and Roberto Martinez and were linked with Motherwell’s Jens Berthel Askou before he went to Toulouse, but there weren’t a slew of candidates bubbling above the surface.
From a football perspective, Keane ticked a lot of boxes. A multiple league winner and former player, it was his work in Israel with Maccabi Tel Aviv that went against him. A core of the Celtic support are pro-Palestinian and would never take to a man who worked for an Israeli club during the Gaza conflict. They made their feelings abundantly clear on Keane with statements and protests.
In a World Cup year where everything is delayed, Celtic had little time to dawdle. Potentially more managers would emerge after the tournament, but that’s too late for this club. There is a power of work to be done.
A squad that has been left malnourished by previous transfer windows, Celtic have little margin for error this time around. Rangers will spend, and have already recruited Lawrence Shankland. Hearts, despite losing that man, have reinforced - with more in the pipeline. Celtic need a goalkeeper, a centre-half, a central midfielder and at least two No 9s. And that’s being conservative.
While there is a domestic challenge, Celtic simply have to be ready for their Champions League play-off in late August - a stage where they fell to Kairat Almaty last year. Next season is the final one where the Scottish champions enter at this juncture; next time it will be the second qualifying round. In short, it’ll be an awful lot harder to get your hands on £30 million of Champions League riches. O’Neill is a safer bet than most when it comes to Europe.
Getting a proper product on the park should help assuage some Celtic dissenters. So much of the vitriol coming from the stands towards Desmond and CEO Michael Nicholson was borne out of inadequate recruitment. Without head of football operations Paul Tisdale, who was jettisoned along with Nancy, it remains opaque as to who is calling the shots when it comes to procuring players.
It’s not just incomings O’Neill has to deal with. Daizen Maeda and Arne Engels were in demand last season. Benjamin Nygren is set to court suitors after the World Cup. This isn’t an easy summer window for the manager - a generation on from his last.
O’Neill’s appointment should be confirmed imminently. A big piece of the jigsaw has been found, but the full picture is far from complete. O’Neill knows this, and one assumes he has been given assurances that he will be properly backed from above in the coming weeks. There are only so many spells a wizard can cast.
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