Martin O'Neill tells Celtic what must happen next after hotel life as own future continues to be talking point
Manager warns that Hearts and Rangers challenge needs addressed
Martin O’Neill has urged Celtic to quickly get to work on being stronger for next season.
O’Neill guided Celtic to the Premiership title on Saturday with a last-gasp 3-1 win over Hearts to pip the Tynecastle side, who finished second, two points behind the eventual champions.
It brought a thrilling climax to what has been a trying season for Celtic, with fan unrest and protests against the board amid a backdrop of poor performances and inadequate recruitment.
O’Neill’s contract expires at the end of this month and the 74-year-old is not expecting to return next season. With a strong Hearts and Rangers expected to be resurgent, the Northern Irishman told Celtic they will need to move fast in their preparations for the 2026/27 campaign.
“We have to look at all the things I’ve spoken about over the last couple of months,” said O’Neill. “That doesn’t change from us winning.
“I think Hearts have been the story this year. They came roaring into it. They will get stronger and if Rangers have anything to do with it, they’ll get stronger too. We have to try to get stronger, not just match it.
“Like what Jock Stein set down in 1967 – we’ll never get close to that – but we should be thinking about trying to compete in European football. That takes a really fine player to be able to cope domestically and have a bash in Europe.
“There is not that much time. Some of the players will head off to the World Cup. Winning the title might give us an extra week because we would have been back earlier for qualification games. But it’s no length of time. Not for me.
“My contract is up to May 31 and I’m down to do a couple of wee things, talking my usual, and I want to fulfil those things. So I won’t have a lot of time, even if they ask me. But it’s dead right, they need to reset and start thinking about what’s next. There are some fine players here but they need supplemented.
‘We need to do the same’
“I don’t think anybody saw Hearts’ challenge coming up, considering where they finished last year. But they bought some really fine players and they had the advantage in a sense of not having European football and going out of the domestic cup competitions. They were playing one game a week while we struggled through those times.
“That can happen. For Celtic, this was a wonderful day and it took an enormous effort. We’d not been in front in the league until we score the second goal. Celtic are used to dominating but you can’t take that for granted – you shouldn’t do. But with Hearts and Rangers getting stronger, we need to do the same.”
O’Neill was asked what he would say if the Celtic hierarchy asked him to stay. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “If the season was to start tomorrow morning, I wouldn’t do it! I couldn’t stand it.
“Naturally I’d hope they asked what I thought. But, seriously, if we didn’t have a cup to worry about this week and they asked me now I wouldn’t be up for it.
“The game is incredibly tactical now, whether it’s man marking, the angles, inverted full backs and so on, which I’ve had to learn, because it wasn’t in my time. I’ve had to go with it at times. The coaches won’t mind me saying, I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I’ve had to acquiesce big time, big time, more than I wanted to!”
O’Neill has been living out of a hotel for the past few months and opened up on what his latest spell in charge of Celtic has been like.
“I’ve stayed in the hotel for the whole time,” he explained. “I went home a couple of times, but only if there wasn't a midweek game or anything. There hasn't been much chance to be honest.
“They were getting me a little flat down the way but my wife couldn’t come up because she’s doing some classes and it would have been too much to change. And the hotel worked out cheaper because I got a better rate!
“It’s been great though. Fantastic. I’m delighted with how it turned out because I would have been really disappointed if we hadn’t won it.
“The first spell was different. It was always going to be a small period, as Dermot said it could be two weeks or two months. It felt like it was a specialised little time. Coming back in January was a completely different issue. I had a bit of a gulp, you think, ‘I don’t know about this really’.
“If they’d chosen someone else that would have been fine. But I’m delighted they stayed with it.”
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