Martin O’Neill - with some gentle prodding, granted – admits that behind the self-deprecating one-liners, he has enjoyed his walk down memory lane as interim manager of Celtic. Though, the calibre of the squad he is working with and the divisions within the club that were laid bare at last week’s AGM may well seem a world away from what he was used to before.
Now, with Wilfried Nancy set to finally arrive after two final curtain calls for the club’s legendary stand-in against Feyenoord on Thursday and Hibernian on Sunday, the focus will shift from the past to the future, and O’Neill is hoping for his successor’s sake that everyone is ready to turn the page on what has been a turbulent season for Celtic so far.
After the warm familiarity of a return to the past, it is now time for the cold reality of dragging Celtic into the future with Nancy at the helm.
"I think that the new manager coming in, I think that he should divorce himself from all those proceedings,” O’Neill said.
“This is a fresh start for him. He hasn't been party to anything that's happened in recent times.
“So, just let's say it was me and I'd never manage the football club again, I'd be saying, 'yeah, that's got nothing to do with me'. I have to try and win some football games and then maybe at some stage or another, if we can get a real team together that can go and compete, not just domestically, but obviously in European football. Well, that would be his job.
“He's got a fresh start. He's going in to step into something that really has been none of his concern. And that's the way I would be approaching it.
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“And it's not like passing the buck. It's just saying, well, sorry, that's not my making. My making now is to put Celtic back in the game.”
From the outside looking in, it seems as though O’Neill has done a more than decent job of at least shielding his players from the off-field issues that have plagued the campaign, and kept them focused on matters on the pitch, and he doesn’t think that the noise around the club has unduly affected the squad.
"No, not really,” he said.
“I don't see that at this minute. But if this was a continuation for a long, long time or something like this, it might be a different issue. I haven't noticed it at all.
“I'm hoping, and since I'm only here for the short period of time, it's just about ignoring anything that'd be happening elsewhere.
“Hopefully, if we score a goal, there'll be a crowd cheering for that. That's the case. And the sooner that this unity comes back to Celtic, the better.”
O’Neill hasn’t quite ruled out the possibility of staying at Celtic in another capacity after Nancy’s arrival, perhaps even as director of football. Though, admittedly, it can be hard to tell exactly when he is being entirely serious on such matters, with the line between his entertaining press conference patter and his after-dinner repartee an increasingly blurry one.
"No, I put that all out myself!” he joked.
“I never asked a board member at all. I just want to hang around for a bit. So, I put that sort of message out and I must have told...if I haven't told you, you must be the last to know of it!
“I genuinely don't know. I would have imagined...I assume my time has not been mentioned in the sense of what role you might want to do.
“Of course, if they asked me, would I be a director of football, and I know from the past that's the best role in football now because you can blame the manager for the bad results, and that's what I'd like to do.
“To step in and become the director of football and then being the manager for every bad result. And if a good player comes up, I take the credit for it, which is brilliant.
“No, I genuinely don't know. I would imagine my time here would be, again, short and sweet.”
Meanwhile, Johnny Kenny is hoping that the boost the Irish and Scottish members of the Celtic squad got from their respective World Cup heroics last week can inspire them to return from the trip to Rotterdam to face Feyenoord this week with some much-needed points in their quest to reach the knockout stage of the Europa League.
“It was unbelievable,” Kenny said.
“We spoke earlier in the week about bringing the nation together and that's what we wanted to do.
“We went to Hungary. It was tough going down to the last few minutes. You're wondering, is the dream over? But Troy (Parrott) popped up in an amazing moment.
“It's just so special because we were written off in September and now we're back together. The whole nation is behind us and even Scotland here. The whole nation is with them now and they've had a great result as well.
“We’ve not been to a major competition in a while. I think Martin was the manager the last time they were at a major competition. We've had ex-players that have been at the World Cup in to speak to us about what it means to play in the World Cup.
“It's a great confidence booster for us all. Liam (Scales) was brilliant in the camp for us and obviously the Scottish lads are coming in with a spring in their step as well.”
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