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It feels unwise to be fooled by Martin O’Neill’s self-deprecation. The 73-year-old remains publicly steadfast that his second stint in charge of Celtic will be short term. “I think my remit was that they would be looking for somebody [else] pretty quickly,” he said on Friday. “I don’t think this is a renaissance. I just think this is a fill-in.”
Shock is still reverberating around Celtic Park, not so much about Monday’s resignation of Brendan Rodgers but the follow-up savaging of the former manager by the main shareholder, Dermot Desmond.
O’Neill is unwilling to speculate upon the ‘what if’. It is undeniable, though, that if he guides Celtic to a League Cup semi-final win against Rangers on Sunday there will be a swell of support for affording him a longer spell in office. “The only people who would be saying that is my two daughters,” said O’Neill. This is incorrect, which he will know only too well. O’Neill masks his intellect well when he chooses to.
“I think today’s game is one for young coaches, young coaches coming into the game,” O’Neill said. “With the model at the moment you’re talking about, generally speaking, foreign owners, foreign agents getting their people in first of all. And I just think that’s the case. So I don’t think there’s any real room for somebody who might have some experience. I don’t think they bother with that.
“Strangely enough, you could have all the experience in the world and still be crap. I take myself back, let’s say back to 48 when I came here. I wonder what I would have thought of somebody 70-plus coming in. I probably would have the same view as people do now.” That self-deprecation again.
At face value, it is ludicrous to contemplate O’Neill as the permanent Celtic manager at this juncture. On Wednesday evening, after a comfortable win against Falkirk, he struggled to name the Celtic left-back. Six years have passed since his last spell in the dugout – at Nottingham Forest – ended abruptly.
“I didn’t feel great about it,” he said. “Particularly at a club I’d spent 10 years as a player at, with a fair amount of success. I think I just hid away for a while. Listen, you’re forgotten very, very quickly in the game. I totally understand that. I got 19 games at Forest under Mr Marinakis. That seems a lifetime now. If you ask Ange Postecoglou, a lifetime.”
There are more serious points worthy of consideration. Should O’Neill beat Rangers (and a manager, Danny Röhl, who is less than half his age) in a game that is fiendishly difficult to call, his prospects should be taken seriously. O’Neill is idolised by the Celtic support, which matters in a time of turmoil. His age, which he plays on quite a lot, disguises an energy and quickness of mind that has never receded.
Celtic could pay £5m in compensation to coax Kieran McKenna from Ipswich. They could take an even bigger gamble on Robbie Keane. The Scottish champions may opt to give Club Brugge’s Nicky Hayen a first taste of British football. These are all gambles in their own way. Even more than O’Neill? This is debatable.
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“I don’t think I’ve ever lost the bug,” O’Neill said. “I really did miss the game. And sometimes I used to think that I could do equally as badly as some of the other boys were doing.”
There is an alternative scenario: should Rangers see off Celtic at Hampden Park, the quest for a fresh managerial face will intensify. “You have to win the game or you’re right back to square one again,” O’Neill admitted. “It’s a massive match for both clubs.”
O’Neill clearly harbours pent-up motivation. “I genuinely think you’re always trying to prove a point,” he said. “I think it was the same as a player. I know I’ve referred to Brian Clough before, but I always felt as if I was trying to prove him more wrong than right. That’s why I probably felt jealous of John Robertson. John used to get the nice little sign of approval and I used to get the fingers. I was always trying to prove him wrong.”
It seems safe to assume Clough would rail against any dismissal of O’Neill’s current prospects.
