WE CAN all be grateful Martin O’Neill hadn’t booked a world cruise this winter.
It might have taken some explaining to his missus of forty-six years, Geraldine, that the much-anticipated voyage on the ocean-going liner would have to go on the backburner with some urgent business to attend to in the east end of Glasgow.
The charismatic Irishman will be back in the dug-out against Dundee United at Parkhead on Saturday just 38 days after waving farewell to the Celtic fans following his eighth game as interim boss.
On that occasion at the same venue, O’Neill had watched Daizen Maeda score the only goal against the other team from Tayside, Steven Pressley’s Dens Park outfit, to bring down the curtain on his seventh victory during his short reign after stepping in following the rapid departure of Brendan Rodgers in late October.
MAKING A POINT…Martin O’Neill has something to say.
And it’s deja vu all over again with the 73-year-old gaffer answering another SOS from Dermot Desmond following the removal of woeful Wilfried Nancy in the aftermath of a horrendous sequence of six defeats in eight matches.
In truth, the Frenchman was never a good fit. I believe the club’s supporters made their thoughts known during his fourth outing – and fourth consecutive reverse – against Saturday’s opponents at Tannadice on the raw Wednesday evening of December 17.
After failures in three different competitions – Hearts 1-2 in the Premiership, AS Roma 0-3 in the Europa League and St Mirren 1-3 in the Premier Sports League Cup Final – patience reached a shrieking breaking point when a 1-0 half-time lead was surrendered by a bewilderingly timid second-half display that saw the hosts score twice and collect an unlikely three points.
An unwanted action replay was staged in the east end of Glasgow at the weekend and the trapdoor buckled and collapsed under Nancy, three of his associates and Director of Football Operations Paul Tisdale, the man behind setting the catastrophic appointment in motion.
I don’t know about you, dear reader, but my heart sank a tad when I heard Nancy speaking for the first time after signing a two-and-a-half year contract.
Was the 48-year-old new man a straight-talker? Nancy offered: “The brand of Celtic fits me really well.
“I don’t consider myself as a boss, I am a leader. The definition of leader is to put a good environment to help and to give the possibility, the people that I work with to express themselves.
“My style of play is about the way I live. I like to be proactive in my life, I like to discover things. I like to try things.
DUMBSTRUCK…Wilfried Nancy is lost for words.
“Football is about relations between players. We don’t play tennis, we don’t play golf. We need, I call it non-verbal communication. We need to run together to score goals, we need to run together to defend the goal.”
While I pondered if we were still talking about football, he added: “We want to take care of the ball. I want proactive football.
“I want the idea to manipulate the opposition to gain speed and attack the box. When we have difficult moments, we have to be strong together and resilient.
“We all want to win. We have to prepare ourselves to be able to find solutions when we’re going to face problems.”
I have no doubt the great Jock Stein would have viewed all this as utter gobbledygook. Words delivered in a mellifluent French accent, but guff still the same.
After just a minute or so of listening to this soliloquy, my imagination, even at its most vivid, could not conjure an image of this individual producing a chest-thumping, up-and-at-’em, motivational address to a changing room full of players in dire need of a gee up from their gaffer.
Big Jock could do it. So, too, could Billy McNeill and Davie Hay. Tommy Burns, Gordon Strachan and Neil Lennon had their moments, as did Ange Postecoglou. It would be churlish not to add Rodgers.
And we can’t overlook the vocal contributions of a guy called Martin O’Neill. On the journey to the UEFA Cup Final in Seville in 2003, the man from Kilrea in County Londonderry gathered his players before the match against Liverpool at Anfield. The first leg in Glasgow had concluded in a 1-1 stalemate.
O’Neill took centre stage for a minute or so to hammer out a message of what this game meant to Celtic Football Club, the players, the supporters and everyone associated with this historic sporting institution. Poor Steven Gerrard and Co didn’t stand a chance.
It’s history now that Celtic won 2-0 while producing a performance the home team just couldn’t match. Alan Thompson and John Hartson scored the goals, but every player wearing green and white that memorable evening on Merseyside was a hero.
A few of the performers that night have since reassured me they were ready to run through walls after O’Neill’s stirring dialogue in the dressing room.
That was then and this is now. O’Neill, with the undoubted gift of the gab, is well aware when it’s time for the talking to stop.
I think we can rest easy that Callum McGregor, Kieran Tierney, Liam Scales, Reo Hatate, Luke McCowan, Daizen Maeda et al will know exactly and precisely what is expected of them around 3pm on Saturday.
That may not have been the case the previous weekend.
ALEX GORDON
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