MARTIN O’NEILL IS A BRILLIANT MANAGER, NOT A DIPLOMAT: AND THAT’S EXACTLY HOW IT SHOULD BE
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 7 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Oh well, I guess we all knew it was coming, time for a wee rant.
What Martin O’Neill said after Celtic’s loss to Stuttgart on Thursday night was unfortunate, but also entirely in character. And that is not a bad thing.
Celtic’s greatest living manager came back to the club this season to do one thing, and one thing only, dig us out of the hole that the Celtic Board threw us into with their own negligence and belligerence.
It is not Martin O’Neill’s job to act as a referee or a peacekeeper in the ongoing, and increasingly bitter feud between Celtic’s current custodians and large swathes of the Celtic support. I think there some people on both sides of this ever-widening divide who need a harsh reminder of this simple fact.
Neither Fans Nor the Board Should Try to Force Martin O’Neill to Take Sides
It’s actually startling. I didn’t believe that anyone, no matter how negligent, callous or misguided they may be, was actually capable of driving a wedge between one of Celtic’s greatest ever leaders and the fans who venerate him almost to the levels of sainthood.
And yet somehow, looking online over the past 36 hours or so, it seems that’s exactly what this Celtic Board have managed to do.
Let’s not kid ourselves, Dermot Desmond and his cronies brought Martin O’Neill back for two reasons. Firstly, they were desperate after the Wilfried Nancy debacle, and they knew no other decent manager would go near the poisoned chalice that is either Celtic or Rangers in freefall mid-season.
The second was a barely-concealed and highly cynical attempt at pacification. They hoped, and to some extent they’ve been proven right, that Martin O’Neill’s return would be enough to turn heads away from the corporate, capitalist rot that is consuming Celtic from the top down, and direct them back entirely to matters on the field of play.
Hence the increasing schisms in the Celtic support at the moment.
Now, do I think that the tennis ball protest on Thursday night was a good idea? No, I think it was pretty dumb.
However, I believe whichever “journalist” it was, acting no doubt on direction from their puppet masters in the Celtic board room, who cornered Martin O’Neill and got him to gift the tabloids their “Celtic Manager Rages at Rebel Fans”-style headlines is just as stupid, if not more so. They’ve been played like a fiddle, and now Martin O’Neill finds himself caught in the middle of a fight he didn’t start, and I’m sure he has no particular interest in concerning himself with.
Like I said, Martin O’Neill’s job is to make sure Celtic remain champions this season. He isn’t a diplomat, he isn’t there to fight fires for the board, or to be the one to “stand up to Desmond” on behalf of disgruntled supporters.
Both sides have a responsibility to stop trying to drag the manager into this feud.
As I said earlier today, Brian Wilson, if there is even a shred of sincerity behind his latest statement, could go a long way to calming this increasingly chaotic storm around our club today.
He could announce a lifting of the collective punishments of both fans and fan media. Or least announce a suspension of such actions until the end of the season.
Martin O’Neill and our players need all the support they can get. However, Celtic fans also have a duty to act in the best interests of the team we love. That does not mean fans will be silent in the face of atrocious treatment of our fellow supporters. It does not mean people like me, fortunate enough to have been gifted a platform to express my views as a Celtic fan to a wider audience, will cower before the whims of the board, and in any way water down our views or our opinions.
Unity is defined as “the coming together of two or more forces for a common purpose”.
Coming together is the goal, not “shut up and do as you’re told”.
Let the fans back in, let fan media do their jobs, and leave Martin O’Neill in peace to win us this league title.