Copyright scotsman
No, this is not an after-dinner speech or a sponsors' media day - Martin O’Neill is indeed the interim manager of Glasgow Celtic. O’Neill himself called his appointment “surreal”. That word doesn’t really do justice to where we are right now. The 73-year-old - who last managed Celtic 20 years ago - will hold the fort while the beleaguered Parkhead club hunt for Brendan Rodgers’ successor. Sitting next to O’Neill at the top table was his assistant, Shaun Maloney, a 42-year-old former Celtic star - and youth player under the Northern Irishman. This wasn’t quite a comedy act but the senior of the two was quick to throw a few jibes in his No 2’s direction. “It's nice to see Shaun,” he smiled. “It keeps me young. I took him to Aston Villa and he claimed he was homesick and went back to Celtic. I've never really forgiven him for that. This is the first time we've really met up so I've got a lot to say to him now when this finishes and it won't be positive!” O’Neill kept the tone pretty light-hearted throughout, but there are serious matters to address. Celtic are eight points behind Hearts in the title race. When Falkirk visit Parkhead on Wednesday, there is big pressure to win. The Northern Irishman has yet to meet the players. He is the figurehead, Maloney is the coach. O’Neill’s appointment, to be fair, came out of the blue for him too. He was sipping coffee with his wife Geraldine in London when the name of Dermot Desmond, the Celtic supremo and the man who took him to Glasgow 25 years ago, flashed up on his phone. “I had just finished at TalkSport and was having a coffee with my wife just off the King’s Road in London,” recounted O’Neill in true storyteller mode. “The last last time I spoke to him, he’d invited me to a barbecue which he was holding in Dublin before the Irish Open that Rory McIlroy won. “So, that would be quite some months ago. I thought it could be something like that. I thought this would be the last thing on earth (that he was calling about) because Dermot never called me when there were other managers around. I might have been twiddling my fingers somewhere, I never got a call then.” O’Neill was given the best part of ten minutes to accept or reject Desmond’s proposition. “He did say, consult your wife and your daughters and stuff like that. My wife was with me, my daughters weren't, so I'd given myself a bit of an excuse that I'd have to speak to my daughters, although they were all on for it, you know, really all on for it. From that sense, I probably needed the 10 minutes for it to sink in, yeah.” Then he had to give a famous promoter a phone call. "I tell you what I've missed out on today, I had a lunch appointment with Barry Hearn,” smiled O’Neill. “He was speaking in London today. I'm probably not missed because you don't get a word in with Barry anyway. Barry likes to talk about Barry. And I think that the people who were promoting the lunch were really disappointed - but I couldn't do anything about it. So I'll have to rearrange something for the organisers. That was really disappointing.” A quick flight up to Glasgow and O’Neill was paraded at Parkhead. He arrived in a swish people carrier. No Honda Civics in sight. There wasn’t even time to brief his new squad. “I’ll see them on Wednesday at some stage,” he admitted. “I will speak to Shaun when we finish here. I had 15-20 minutes with Shaun last night on the phone quite late on, so Shaun and I will have a wee discussion now about what the best thing to do will be for tomorrow. “I will be relying on him greatly, certainly at the beginning, and obviously if it goes wrong, I will blame him, my usual style! That’s it. I’m sorry I’m semi-fudging a bit, but honestly, this is the last place on earth I thought I was going to be, here tonight.” A lot has changed since May 2005, the last time O’Neill patrolled a dugout at Celtic Park in a 2-1 win over Hearts, but the former Nottingham Forest boss, who last managed in 2019, is keen to stick to some old traditions. “My message will be: win,” he said. “I know it’s an easy thing to say, but you have to find a way to win. The club has been winning for a long time but they haven’t in a little while. It’s about finding a way to get going again and once you start winning then all the little plans you want to put in place are almost seamless.” What about those famous tracksuit bottoms and rugby shirts? “I’m 73 years-old, I’ve got to wise up at some stage!" he laughed. "I have no idea but if someone throws me an old pair of socks and tells me to stick them on .." He then took a moment to deride the modern-day phenomenon that is xG (expected goals, for those behind the curve). “I don’t believe in it,” he said. “If the backroom lads come up with it then I’ll strike it off the list! “I’ve not idea, honestly. It’s not affecting anything. It doesn’t get you a corner, there’s really nothing to it. I can imagine 50 years ago and Brian Clough rollicking me for missing two goals and me saying they were expected goals! Seriously, you wouldn’t play again for a month! “It’s just been made up. If someone can tell me it makes sense, I’ll go with it.” Does anything make sense right now? This was a rub-your-eyes moment within the No 7 Restaurant at Celtic Park - a facility O’Neill opened in 2002. Joking that he was the oldest man in the room, in the short term O’Neill needs to follow the oldest mantra in football: win matches. Then, in his words, he can “go off into the sunset”, hopefully for him with brighter days ahead for Celtic.
