Former Celtic managerial legend has no intentions of retiring

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Former Celtic manager Martin O’Neill has no intentions of retiring from football, despite his last management role coming in 2019.

The Northern Irishman is a legendary figure at Parkhead after his extremely successful spell in Glasgow between 2000-2005.

It would be fair to say that O’Neill was one of the key figures in kickstarting Celtic’s modern-day success, which has seen the club lift 16 out of the last 22 league titles.

After leading the Hoops to three Scottish Premier League titles, three Scottish Cups, a Scottish league cup and the UEFA Cup final in 2003, O’Neill went on to continue his managerial career.

Spells at Aston Villa and Sunderland in the English Premier League were followed by five years in international management with the Republic of Ireland.

His last role came back in 2019, with the club he spent most of his playing days at, Nottingham Forest. However, his stay lasted only a matter of months.

Since then, O’Neill has mostly been working as a TV pundit and has been seen covering the occasional Celtic game for Sky Sports.

At 70 years old and after being out of management for four years, some coaches might have called it a day and moved into retirement.

However, that is not for O’Neill, who revealed in a Twitter Q&A on Wednesday afternoon that he loved football too much to ever think about retiring from the game.

Celtic could have been O’Neill’s last role in 2020/21 after surprise approach.

For Celtic supporters, the 2020/21 campaign isn’t a season we really want to cast our minds back to after such a disappointing year.

However, that same season, we could have seen the return of O’Neill to Celtic had the legendary boss accepted the club’s approach.

Towards the end of Neil Lennon’s tenure at the club, it is fair to say that the former Hoops captain was struggling, and fans could tell his time was coming to an end.

And around that time, a report from the Athletic stated that both Martin O’Neill and Gordon Strachan were approached to speak about the possibility of a temporary return until the end of the season.

Understandably, with so much going on at the club around that time, both refused, and you can see exactly why they did so.

Although O’Neill may have been able to steady the ship before Ange Postecoglou’s arrival the following summer, would it be worth potentially risking his incredible legacy at the club?

Well over a year on from that season, and the rest is now history.

It would certainly have been interesting to see O’Neill step back into the Parkhead dugout at that time, over 16 years since his last spell in Glasgow.

However, as mentioned, it was the right step to take, and O’Neill’s last managerial role was now over four years ago in the English Championship.

Despite his long absence from the managerial game, O’Neill doesn’t sound as though he has lost his enthusiasm, and he would still love to step back into the dugout.

It remains to be seen if another role will come in the near future for the former Celtic boss. However, I am sure he would still have a few tricks up his sleeve at the right club if that opportunity arrives in the future.

In other news, Celtic’s position remains untouched after fresh Juranovic reports.