NOBODY, but nobody, has to remind Martin O’Neill that a league title is never sealed until it is mathematically assured. Very few in fact would be brave enough to broach the subject with the former Celtic manager.
O’Neill still smarts from the late collapse his team suffered some 17 years ago now, blowing their seemingly insurmountable advantage over Rangers in a frantic final few minutes at Fir Park, an afternoon that forever became known as ‘Helicopter Sunday’.
Ange Postecoglou now finds himself in territory then that O’Neill knows only too well, with his Celtic side six points clear of Rangers at the top of the table with just three games to play, though he also enjoys the luxury of a vastly superior goal difference over their rivals.
The strength of Celtic’s position this time around is such that a collapse to lose out on the title is unfathomable, but O’Neill’s certainty that Postecoglou’s men will get over the line stems from the conviction of the manager in his beliefs, and the buy-in he has subsequently got from his players.
They won’t waver now, according to O’Neill, because Postecoglou has refused to waver from the path he has set them on, even in the difficult early moments of his tenure.
“Their confidence is high and they’ve got over the final Rangers hurdle, it would be hard for them not to make it,” O’Neill said.
“Having said that, I can go back to 2005 when we beat Rangers at Ibrox to go five points clear with four matches left.
“Then we lost at home to Hibs and lost in the last few minutes at Motherwell so don’t call it until it’s over!
“I think it’s been a great achievement, the reasons being that he’s come in without being well known for a start and that put some Celtic fans on the back foot immediately.
“Then all you need is a really stodgy start and suddenly there were question marks all over the place regarding the nature of his game.
“But for him to stick to his beliefs when things weren’t going well....when you come into a new club and that happens then the hardest thing to do is not to change a thing.
“Watching from a distance, the impression I got from him was ‘Listen, I’ll get things right and the players I’ve brought to this football club will improve the team’ and that is exactly what’s happened. “It’s been terrific.”
It hasn’t only been the wider success of Celtic that has pleased O’Neill this season, but that one of his former charges is playing such a significant role in the Postecoglou era in the form of John Kennedy.
Injury may have robbed the former Celtic defender of the chance to fulfil his potential as a player, but O’Neill is glad to see that his association with the tumultuous end to the 10 in-a-row dream and Neil Lennon’s tenure hasn’t denied him the opportunity to fulfil his potential as a Celtic coach.
That Postecoglou has preferred to work with the backroom staff that were in place rather than bringing in his own men raised some eyebrows initially, but O’Neill knows from his own experience that such arrangements can work out well.
“John was obviously a young player when I was at Celtic,” he said.
“His career was effectively ruined within a week. He played in two games, he played Rangers and he played Barcelona. He played at Ibrox and did really well and he followed it up at the Nou Camp.
“Then he got into the Scotland squad and within 10 days his career was over. Shocking, really shocking challenge.
“Because he was so young I would never have thought: ‘He is going to step up here and be a manager’. He was very young at the time.
“If Ange has come in and said he has been really helpful it is nice to hear. I had the advantage of being able to take two people up with me, John (Robertson) and Steve (Walford). That was great, we were very tight-knit.
“I had a fitness instructor who was thrust upon me, Jim Hendry. I inherited him and he was definitely the best fitness instructor I have ever had. So sometimes you can inherit somebody who is really good. He was excellent.”
O’Neill turned 70 in March, and is enjoying the more sedate pace of punditry work that largely makes up his professional commitments these days. But the itch is still there to get back into the thick of management, and it is one he feels may require scratching soon.
“It is interesting,” he said. “I think I have been hiding behind Covid now for two years. I haven’t actively sought out anything. Of course, you have to be asked somewhere along the way.
“I do some punditry work for overseas television. I jokingly say I am massive in Malaysia, not so big in Huddersfield.
“If some owner of a football club or somebody who was preparing to take over came to me and said ‘listen, would you fancy managing for a year or two’ I would maybe give it some thought. But I haven’t really done anything about it. I suppose lethargy sets in, although I’m not really lethargic.
“Strangely enough, [the grief]’s probably the bit I miss the most. Genuinely.”
