HOW MARTIN O'NEILL CAN WIN US THE LEAGUE
- By LIAM McBRIDE
- Apr 23
- 5 min read
Celtic's Manager has been down this road before, and as ACSOM's Liam McBride reports, that gives us an important edge for these final 5 league games.
Just when you think the season couldn’t have gotten any stranger, Celtic, seemingly out of nowhere, decided to blast six past St Mirren to book their place in the Scottish Cup final.
Heading into the final, the Hoops needed four games to register the same tally.
More to the point, four of them came in the space of eight minutes, after another lacklustre ninety minutes of play.
It leaves us in a very confusing place heading into the split.
Martin O'Neill is Maybe the Only Manager Who Could Salvage This Season
With just 67 points after 33 games, the Hoops have managed exactly 2.02 points a game this season. An easier way of thinking about that is a tally of 4 points every two games. Therefore, for every win registered, there is an equivalent draw to show for it. It's the lowest rate since the turn of the millennium.
Luckily, our two closest title challengers are also very average teams and it's for that reason that our title challenge remains alive heading into the home stretch.
It remains a big ask, though. Three points behind Hearts and two behind Rangers, Celtic have their work cut out if they want to make it five titles in a row. After all, it’s very likely that five wins out of five will be necessary. The only other time this has been managed was during O’Neill’s first interim spell earlier this season.
The overall pecking order amongst the three sides remains unclear. Last week, when Rangers turned up to a high-flying Falkirk side and scored six past them, it felt like a statement victory to me. The type of result that confirmed their status as the team to beat.
My reasoning? I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that this Celtic side would score six goals against anyone in any situation.
A week later, perhaps things are put into perspective as Falkirk slump to a penalties defeat against Dunfermline, who sit fourth in the Scottish Championship. To further confuse things, this Celtic side does, in fact, find a situation to six goals.
Oh, and there’s Hearts. Even after 33 games at the summit, they are still the outsiders. With three of their last five games away, they won't be taking confidence from their recent form. In their last four outings on the road, they have picked up just one point. Furthermore, just as Cammy Devlin and Lawrence Shankland recently returned, Oisin McEntee and Tomas Magnusson took their places on the treatment table.
So, can we do it? Will it be five in a row or nothing to show?
At this stage of the season, anything is possible. With this set of players, it was always about making sure we were in the mix for the final five games and then taking it from there. Having played both our title rivals away twice, it thankfully means the final two matches will be at Celtic Park. By the time both of those ties are played, Hearts will have already welcomed Rangers to Tynecastle. The picture will be so much clearer.
Before then, though, wins against Falkirk and Hibernian are a necessity. We’ve not been able to count on this side delivering consistently at any point this season, but should the XI manage to get through these two games unscathed, it'll be clear what is necessary to win this title.
Returning players could prove to give us a mighty boost. Kelechi Iheanacho showed at the weekend just how much of an upgrade he is to any of the other striker options that we brought in January. Should he stay fit (a big if), you'd be surprised if either Tomas Cvancara or Junior Adamu play many more games in the Green and White.
If there is one thing that Sunday proved, it is that Celtic are a better team when Iheanacho plays. The Nigerian provides an out-ball option who can hold the ball up and bring others into play. With an imbalanced midfield that seems incapable of progressing the play through the pitch, this is all the more important.
Callum Osmand is also set to return to the squad. While the young Welshman doesn’t have the previously mentioned attributes, his pace and movement will give the team an option in behind should teams continue to defend in the aggressive manner they have been able to this season.
It means that there will be two different types of options for the Champions to utilize during a match and even the option of playing both at once.
Furthermore, the return of Alistair Johnson will also be greatly appreciated. The Canadian has effectively been missing for the full season. Apart from Julian Araujo’s brief spell in the side, his absence has been sorely missed.
Not only will he improve the side from a defensive point of view, he will also supply attacking help, supplying some much-needed pace and physicality.
So, clearly, there are some reasons to be positive about the coming weeks.
Nevertheless, it remains such an unknown. We’re not used to this as fans. As a younger supporter myself, I’ve seen title races but not from a position of weakness.
I’ve watched tight battles in the 2021/22 and 2023/24 seasons. Yet, with better players and a better manager in both, there was so much confidence that we would win the race.
Now, while O’Neill is undeniably the best manager of the three, there remains a real question mark over whether he has the tools at his disposal to win his fourth title in Glasgow.
It’s going to be tense, it’s going to be tight. It’s the five-game grand prix to decide the best team in Scotland. Or perhaps the least poor team in Scotland, however you look at it.
Either way, it’ll be a season remembered for all the wrong reasons. The 2025/26 bingo card includes poor recruitment, managerial mayhem, character-assassination statements, banning supporters and branding the fans as “anti-establishment”.
However, in many ways, the thought of all of this accumulating in a potential league double and Martin O’Neill sailing off into the sunset may just be better than anything the Celtic faithful has experienced in a long time.
Of course, it’s more of a romantic thought than a logically reasoned prediction. The stone-cold reality is that this is a poor Celtic side and should they stumble to third in the league, no one could really be surprised.
Nevertheless, the flaw of a football fan is that often the heart speaks a little louder than the brain. And I can’t help but feel that if anyone can do it, it's Martin O’Neill.
