When he returned to Celtic as professional player pathway manager last June, never in Shaun Maloney's wildest dreams did he think that, less than a year later, he'd be part of the group leading the club to a league and Scottish Cup double alongside Martin O'Neill.
The 43-year-old is highly thought of at Parkhead, and when principal shareholder Dermot Desmond phoned O'Neill to ask him to return as interim manager last October, one of his key questions was whether he would be happy working with Maloney.
"No problem whatsoever," O'Neill replied.
O'Neill brought Maloney through Celtic's academy and handed him his first-team debut aged 18 in 2001 against Rangers at Ibrox.
Over two decades on, their relationship has blossomed. When he was the manager of Wigan Athletic for two years between 2023 and 2025, O'Neill had planned to visit Maloney, but circumstances never worked out.
At Celtic this season, they worked more closely together than they ever had before.
Training ground impact
As he did during his first spell in Glasgow's East End between 2000 and 2005, O'Neill delegated training duties.
Maloney was his second in command, and above the likes of Mark Fotheringham, Gavin Strachan, and Stephen McManus in the pecking order, but their roles were crucial nonetheless.
"In terms of the structure of training day to day and the drills that we do, I would say the majority of that, about 60 to 70 per cent of that, is driven by Gavin Strachan and Stephen McManus," Maloney told The Celtic Way in March.
"The nearer we get to the game, I start to get more involved and Mark Fotheringham does a lot of work without the ball. But we are all pretty aligned with Martin. I worked with him when I was young and there are clear fundamentals that Martin wants in his team. It has been a really good refresher for me.
"There are some brilliant things that he wants from his team which remind us how to win games. Maybe as a young coach you get overfocused on the complexities. But he has got a really clear idea of how to win games. It is the rest of us who have to try and produce what he wants to see from the team in training.
"The fundamentals that Martin spoke about 25 years ago are still relevant now."
Before returning to Celtic last summer, Maloney had spent over two years in charge of Wigan. He was Roberto Martinez's assistant at Belgium for over three years and managed Hibs for 19 games in the 2021/22 season.
"He was a fully committed person, very intelligent and 100 per cent determined to become a top, top coach," Martinez, who will manage Portugal at this summer’s World Cup and has been linked with the Celtic job, said of Maloney in 2023.
As a player, Maloney’s football IQ shone through. His game intelligence helped him relate well with Celtic captain Callum McGregor.
This season, Maloney has been working towards gaining his UEFA Pro Licence, but when asked about the permanent Celtic managerial job in January, he said: "No, not for me… We'll figure all that out in the summer."
Season-defining decisions
There are key decisions to which Maloney was central throughout Celtic's double success.
Bringing Fotheringham into the coaching team was his idea, and it bore substantial fruit, as the former Huddersfield Town boss fostered close relationships with several players and became highly respected in and around the dressing room.
Fotheringham’s man-management skills were crucial, and he constantly sought to preserve a positive atmosphere at Lennoxtown with his characteristic enthusiasm both on and off the training pitch.
Adding Callum Osmand to the senior set-up was also Maloney's call. The 20-year-old striker was signed from Fulham last summer but did not see a single second of competitive action under former manager Brendan Rodgers.
From his work as professional player pathway manager, Maloney was fully aware of Osmand's attributes. Although still raw, his sharp turn of pace and impressive finishing ability were viewed as useful qualities.
On Tuesday, October 28 last year, less than 24 hours after his initial return as interim manager was announced, Maloney told O'Neill over dinner that he would love to bring Osmand into the senior set-up.
The centre-forward made his first team debut the following evening against Falkirk and scored on the Sunday against Rangers in the League Cup semi-final.
Read more:
Osmand suffered a hamstring injury against Midtjylland shortly after but would return in time for the final day title shootout against Hearts.
With the match poised at one apiece, Osmand came off the bench. He set up Daizen Maeda for Celtic's go-ahead goal and sealed the victory – and his club's 56th league championship in the process – after rolling the ball into an empty net with the final kick of the campaign.
Speaking to club media shortly after the Jersey-born forward scored against Rangers in November, Maloney explained: "The way that he's trained over the last three or four months, how hard he's trained – he was ready for this opportunity.
"Stephen [McManus] has worked with Callum, we've all seen him now train, and he's now getting to a point where you can't really hold him back. Then it's how the boy takes the actual opportunity.
"I knew with Martin coming, on Tuesday night, when I met him for dinner, to go through the squad and the players, I knew he would love Callum.
"He's the exact type of striker that the manager would like. You can sense that sort of bond between the manager and Callum already, that he feels his trust."
Celtic may not be champions if Maloney had not intervened and brought Osmand into the first team set-up.
A key touchline presence
On the touchline on matchdays, Maloney was ever-present. He could often be seen deep in discussion with McGregor at various junctures.
In the Scottish Cup final, for example, when Dunfermline Athletic took control of the match at the beginning of the second half after making three substitutions at the break, McGregor spoke with Maloney for two to three minutes, devising a way to regain dominance.
Maloney spent as much time standing on the touchline as O’Neill throughout the season, vociferously dishing out tactical instructions.
O’Neill trusted his lieutenant. The Celtic job was the veteran’s first in club football in over six years. Internally, he worried about returning to the modern game, failing, and being dubbed a proverbial dinosaur.
In the end, O’Neill’s ability to connect with players remained fully intact. He made them feel 10 feet tall and was a figurehead not just for the team and his coaching staff, but for the club as a whole.
Tactically, however, he leaned heavily on Maloney and company.
"Shaun and Mark, I have to give enormous praise to them because, seriously, they were really, really terrific," O’Neill explained at the end of the season.
"I'm a passer-by in these proceedings. Coaching things and talking to me tactically as if I didn't have a clue – and I didn't!
"The very obvious thing is a man of my age working with young people, not just players, but coaches, who have coached before, and watching them develop is amazing, really. I still think of them as my players, and I think that's the hardest thing to get over!
"When they go into a corner, come up with some tactic, I get a draft of it, but I don't get the final say."
Celtic faced Rangers at Ibrox in the Scottish Cup quarter finals at the beginning of March. After 120 gruelling minutes, across which they failed to register a solitary shot on goal, the players huddled around Maloney.
He gave the final instructions ahead of a decisive penalty shootout in front of the Copland Stand. O’Neill, like his players, was tuned in.
"It wasn’t anything complex, it wasn’t anything too motivating, it wasn’t anything Churchillian," Maloney later said.
"The players work really hard, and the staff work hard with the players.
"I just told them to trust the technique that they have and to have belief in their own ability. That is exactly what they did."
Behind the scenes, O'Neill and Maloney were understood to respectfully disagree about certain principles of play.
Maloney favoured a more controlled, possession-based approach, with O'Neill wanting Celtic to go direct.
In the final weeks of the season, particularly after the returns of Alistair Johnston and Arne Engels from injury, the team sought to play through the lines rather than go long to a focal-point striker like Tomas Cvancara, as they had done in prior matches.
Celtic looked more like previous iterations of themselves, scoring five post-split goals directly from cut-backs.
From the training ground to the touchline, Maloney's fingerprints were all over the late-season surge.
What’s next?
When he returned to Celtic as professional player pathway manager last summer, Maloney guaranteed chief executive Michael Nicholson that he would remain at the club for at least two years. Almost 12 months on, it is a promise he does not plan to break.
Maloney has been considered seriously for the head of football operations role, vacant since Paul Tisdale's sacking at the beginning of January.
If successful in his candidacy, Maloney will report to the board and be responsible for the identification and development of talent both in recruitment and the academy, as well as supporting Celtic's analytics functions.
Conversely, if O’Neill is appointed permanent manager this summer, given how central Maloney was to each of the veteran’s spells in 2025/26, he could yet stay on the first team coaching staff.
Regardless of the role, Maloney will remain at Celtic going into the 2026/27 season.
"If we didn't have Martin, we would have been nowhere near this title," he said last week.
While Maloney isn’t wrong, the truth is, without his contributions, Celtic's trophy-laden end to the season would be nothing short of a pipe dream.
Share