In lieu of anyone else to ask, Martin O'Neill is being left to answer questions about the lack of signings made by Celtic so far in this transfer window. Graeme McGarry argues that asking him to do this, as well as cleaning up the mess left on the field by Wilfried Nancy and off it by Paul Tisdale, is entirely unfair on the 73-year-old, and is a sign of a club lacking in strategy.
On Friday, it will have been a year since news broke that Kyogo Furuhashi was to leave Celtic. 365 whole days. Internally, the club knew of his desire to move on long before then.
And yet, here we are in 2026, and still, with the greatest of respect, Johnny Kenny is still the only 'first team' central striker on Celtic’s books.
What is most alarming of all for Celtic fans is that having broken the emergency glass on Martin O’Neill once more, the club’s board haven’t only tasked the 73-year-old with unravelling the mess left behind by their catastrophic appointment of Wilfried Nancy, and begged him to corral this squad they have assembled back into something vaguely resembling a football team, but they have also dropped him into the middle of a transfer window, and have asked him to head up their critical winter recruitment drive.
Aided at least by the highly capable Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham, as well as new scout James Bell-Walker, it appears that O’Neill – who was out of the game for eight years before Dermot Desmond’s last dragged him away from the quiet life and his coffee on the Old Kent Road in October – is now the Celtic manager, their director of football and head of recruitment all at once.
It would almost be funny if their situation wasn’t so deadly serious. Though, their title rivals are surely enjoying much mirth at their plight. And no matter how amusing O’Neill’s press conference schtick may be, there is only so long – if signings do not arrive post-haste – before the joke of their club's current transfer strategy will start wearing thin with the Celtic support.
None of this is O’Neill’s fault. And yes, he hasn’t been forced into doing this. There is no denying, as he himself has said, that he was reinvigorated by his first spell in charge this season. But that was a short-term holding of the fort. This is a rescue mission that includes a rebuild.
His chief sin if any has been blind loyalty to a club he loves, and a willingness to help them out in their hour of need. It is not only a damning indictment on the structure of Celtic and the way the club is run that he is now being forced to wear so many hats, and put out so many fires, but it is also entirely unfair on him.
Read more:
- Why Falkirk fans are boycotting Celtic Park, and why other fans should too
- Where the Celtic board can learn from Rangers after Wilfried Nancy fiasco
- If it all comes down to this for Nancy at Celtic, then why not Paul Tisdale too?
Just as it is entirely unfair that he is thrust before the press numerous times a week to answer questions that those above him should really be fielding.
His latest post-match presser after he had watched this Celtic team – I hesitate to call it his – labouring past Auchinleck Talbot rather put me in mind of that scene from The Simpsons where Tony the mob boss comes to collect a debt from Marge.
“I’m afraid the fans have been most vocal on the subject of the new signings. Where are the signings? When are you going to get the signings? Why aren't you getting the signings now? And so on.”
It must get rather repetitive and more than a touch irritating for O’Neill to constantly have to bat away these enquiries, which in defence of the press pack, are only natural. So far, he has handled it all with grace and diffused the situation with humour, but until there is a number nine worthy of the name holding a green and white scarf above his head outside the Celtic Park tunnel, these questions will keep on coming.
O’Neill raised a few chuckles from the media on Sunday as he recalled the ‘ugly’ old school journos who would spar with him on a Friday morning during his first stint in charge of the club 25 years ago, and as you can see from the byline photo above, not a lot has improved in that regard.
But the ugly truth is that O’Neill is currently scrambling around trying to find an accomplished forward to somehow fire this Celtic side to the title, and as much as that may be like applying lipstick to a pig, it might just get them there.
He could do with a right winger as well, mind you, and has been spotted watching Motherwell’s Tawanda Maswanhise. Would Celtic though, who had no qualms splashing out the guts of £5m on someone like Michel Ange-Balikwisha, be likely to stump up a similar sum for a player from a smaller Scottish club, even if he is the joint-top scorer in the division that Celtic actually compete in? I have my doubts.
Rangers might just swoop in, and if they do, and he goes on to contribute to a title win for the Ibrox side, the Celtic board would be as well postponing this year’s AGM already.
Even if Celtic do deliver the sticking plasters required in this window, there is now no strategy. They are running around with their hair on fire, with no thought of the future, or being ready for the potential of having to navigate Champions League qualifiers in the summer, for instance.
In fairness, they have to get there first, which is far from guaranteed, but if they have another disastrous transfer window, then the Celtic board no longer have Paul Tisdale to hide behind. They cannot expect surely that the Celtic fans will tolerate them using the legendary O’Neill as their next human shield.
This column is being written en route to Bologna, where Celtic will play their penultimate Europa League group phase match on Thursday night, and where O’Neill will once again face the press this evening. And while sympathy for him is natural, no apologies will be made nor expected as the line of questioning on transfers continues in lieu of anyone else to ask.
That isn’t fair on O’Neill. But then again, none of this is.
Share