There is a tendency in football to judge a season solely by the final outcome. When a team wins a league title comfortably, many assume the journey was straightforward.
Celtic finished the campaign as champions, but how they won the title has created a misleading picture of what Martin O’Neill actually had to overcome.
For that reason, Jackie McNamara’s recent comments deserve attention. The former Scotland international highlighted an aspect of Celtic’s season that has largely been overlooked, namely the number of significant setbacks they had to navigate while maintaining their position at the top.
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McNamara highlights the reality behind Celtic’s success
McNamara believes the narrative around Celtic’s title-winning campaign has been far too simplistic.
He told the Daily Record, “I don’t think it was talked about enough, the amount of players Celtic missed this year. Starting with the goalkeeper situation with Kasper Schmeichel’s injury, Cameron Carter-Vickers was also a massive one, Jota too.
“You add in the fact they’ve also struggled in the striking area. Even with the ones they brought in in January, they’ve all been injured or not playing.
“The fact Martin has managed to navigate his way through some really important games while also playing in Europe to get it over the line is incredible.
“He’s had to manage Kelechi Iheanacho, bringing him in at certain points in games because you can’t start him as he won’t last the 90. You’ve got to give him immense credit for how they’ve done that.”
Whether supporters agree with every aspect of that assessment or not, the broader point is difficult to dispute. Losing influential players in key areas of the pitch inevitably creates complications.
Goalkeeper, centre-back and winger are three of the most influential positions on the pitch. Losing key starters in each area would create problems for any side.
Celtic’s season was more demanding than many acknowledge
What McNamara identifies is the gap between perception and reality. Once Celtic established themselves at the top of the Premiership, much of the discussion centred on how comfortable their title win looked from the outside.
That overlooks the challenges Martin O’Neill had to navigate throughout the campaign. Celtic were rarely able to call upon a fully fit squad for any sustained period, with injuries disrupting key areas of the team at various stages of the season.
Cameron Carter-Vickers missed significant chunks of action, while Alistair Johnston, Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda and others all spent spells on the sidelines. Even Kasper Schmeichel was absent during the closing weeks of the campaign, forcing O’Neill to rely on his squad depth when the season was entering its decisive phase.
Those injury setbacks arrived alongside the demands of European football, domestic cup commitments and the weekly expectation of maintaining Celtic’s advantage at the top of the table. Managing those competing pressures required far more than simply sending the same starting XI out every week.
It is easy to look back at a season that ended with silverware and assume the journey was straightforward. The reality was that O’Neill regularly had to adjust his plans, find solutions within the squad and keep standards high despite important absences.
That is why McNamara’s point carries weight. Acknowledging Celtic’s superiority does not mean ignoring the obstacles they faced along the way. The title may have been secured with room to spare, but the road towards it was considerably more demanding than many now remember.
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