Martin O’Neill gives Celtic stability, but uncertainty remains

He had reached an agreement to continue after discussions with principal shareholder Dermot Desmond last Thursday, but it took a full week for the club to confirm to supporters what everyone already knew.

O’Neill, due to hit the after-dinner circuit in venues across Scotland this weekend, cannot have fancied this dragging on too much longer. His status is clear, and the soundbites of the Celtic board talking up their wise decision have been issued, but that’s where the certainty ends.

The celebratory confetti of last season’s double triumph has barely been swept away, yet the first gaggle of players report for pre-season duty at Lennoxtown in just a fortnight. Nobody, at this stage, really knows who will lead them through the first set of drills.

Day-to-day training pitch work has never been conducted by O’Neill. It is not a part of his management style. He has always had trusted assistants. They are a crucial component of the full O’Neill package. By his own admission he has been greatly aided by Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham of late. Curiously, there was no mention of either in Celtic’s announcement.

As my colleague Stephen McGowan has reported, the pair remain ‘a distance apart’ with the club on reaching a contractual agreement despite being a key part of the title win that had looked so unlikely at the start of January.

“I would hope that whatever happens, they would consider the coaching staff that I've had because they have been brilliant,” O’Neill said after the Scottish Cup Final, when his own future was still in doubt.

“Shaun, Fozzie, Big Mick, Gavin and Craig, they’ve all been great helps to me. I'm sure now at this minute they might think about it or they might ask my opinion on the thing. They’re hugely capable. The players like them.”

O’Neill enjoyed working with much younger coaches and the contrasting opinions they brought to the table, whether utilising data and modern analysis, or privately debating tactical nuances between possession-based football and a more direct style.

Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham (Image: Shutterstock)

It is not that O’Neill can’t do the job without them. Nor is it that he never had full control of the situation. However, Celtic already had in place a coaching set-up that had created a functional, winning environment for a beleaguered squad which experienced far too much upheaval as a direct result of decisions made at an executive level.

In choosing O’Neill, by extension, the Celtic board are also choosing the tools he used to deliver success. Maintaining stability must be part of the appeal. So why is there a hold-up?

Whatever the delay with Maloney and Fotheringham entails, perception is already colouring the external mood. For many fans, it looks as if every penny is a prisoner and any leaving the £67.4 million Celtic pile on good behaviour must wear ankle tags.

The club can talk about improving process, sustainability and good governance all it wants. If the consequence of their custodianship is that key staff who helped rescue a season are left in limbo, the optics are dreadful.

Despite the reputation he’s earned, O’Neill is not a miracle man, nor a magician. Like any managerial appointment, he needs a proper support structure around him. Putting in place coaches he trusts would be a good start. Following through on clear transfer priorities is a must.

Another summer where Celtic drift through key weeks giving the impression that the football operation is being assembled one tortured negotiation at a time is not the way to prove change, demanded by so many supporters last season, has occurred.

The fixture list will not wait for them. It begins in 50 days. Neither will the transfer market, which opens in three. Champions League qualification, now just 67 days away, should focus minds as an early referendum on how much progress the club has truly made over the last 12 months.

Is this a major football club living up to a major football club’s responsibility to its paying support? That question is at the heart of tensions already simmering away at the start of a long hot summer.

Yet, despite it all, not one of Celtic’s rivals will be comfortable with O’Neill staying on. If last season’s Scottish Premiership table only displayed games played during his two spells, he’d have wiped the floor with both Hearts and Rangers, despite the last gasp nature of the eventual triumph.

For multiple generations of the club’s supporters, when they close their eyes and think of the word ‘winning’, it’s a picture of O’Neill’s joyful jumps on the touchline they see. He is, frankly, what so many clubs spend years searching for and never find.

Martin O'Neill (Image: Shutterstock)

It’s true that this appointment could be viewed as Celtic kicking the can of progress and long-term planning down the road. It’s not an entirely unfair assessment. Ultimately, though, football is played in the here and now, not theoretical futures.

In that sense, O’Neill’s extended stay in Glasgow means that wrestling Celtic’s control of the Premiership trophy, which they’ve won 14 out of the last 15 seasons, is going to be as difficult as ever for hopeful contenders. Outsiders shouldn’t mistake the Celtic support’s desire for optimisation, and the ensuing grumbling, as a sign of deep weakness.

That is the contradiction Celtic keep inviting on themselves. They can be powerful enough to win domestically, comfortably, while still appearing oddly underpowered in how they operate.

O’Neill’s return ultimately gives the club a platform for more success. But it also removes excuses. From here, every delay, every muddled negotiation and every half-measure belongs to the club, not the man in the dugout.

He is an all-time hero for this tribe, and if you aren’t seen as supporting the hero of any story, it’s only natural you’ll be cast as the villain.