The footballing world is a totally different landscape from when Martin O’Neill first took charge of Celtic.
The 73-year-old first stepped into Celtic Park in 2000, and believe it or not, kids, Rangers’ dominant period in Scottish football had just ended.
Since then, Celtic have obliterated everyone before them, including winning countless Trebles, as the modern player, money, broadcasters, data, social media, you name it, has taken over like never before.
You wonder if an old-school coach like O’Neill would have survived in today’s game, not his ability to set a team up, but with what he would have to deal with daily and in the boardroom.
There are more people on the coaching staff than ever before, from set-piece coaches, throw-in coaches, and data analytics experts, among other things.
And the recent goings-on at Sheffield United haven’t sat well with Celtic’s legendary coach.
What has happened with Chris Wilder?
Chris Wilder was sacked by Sheffield United this month after failing to earn promotion back to the Premier League after losing the Championship play-off final to Sunderland.
The Blades earned 90 points over the season to finish third, but that seemingly wasn’t the reason behind his exit, amid rumours of a disagreement with the club’s American owners.
According to the Guardian, Wilder ‘disagreed with the owners’ enthusiasm for a heavily data-driven player recruitment system’, and that was discussed by Celtic legend O’Neill on talkSPORT, including how this data-driven analysis, as well as AI (Artificial Intelligence), is taking over.
“I am all on for data, that’s fine, it’s how you find out about players,” said O’Neill. “But eventually, the one thing that AI can’t do, it can’t tell you about the gut feeling of a player. It can’t tell you whether he has any courage or not. Whether he can hack it, really, at a level you are playing at.
“Listen, it sounds really old-fashioned, and I am really with Chris Wilder. If he has parted company because he isn’t in total agreement with that thing. I am sure Chris doesn’t mind the data coming in, but he has to have a feel for these players somewhere along the way.
“If you are getting a group of people together, three or four of them are involved in recruitment selection, who really have no idea about the player, no idea, but they are working on something they have seen on a screen. I am sorry, I am not into that.”
Martin O’Neill doubts signing John Hartson for Celtic in the era of AI
One of O’Neill’s best purchases as the Celtic manager was signing the hard-hitting John Hartson from Coventry City in 2001.
But amid O’Neill being unhappy with this data-mad footballing world, he feels that they would have advised him against signing a man like Hartson.
The Celtic Park faithful are grateful that no such things were around then because, as O’Neill mentioned, Hartson was ‘top, top quality’.
“That’s true (I wouldn’t have signed Hartson if it were down to analytics),” added O’Neill. “John Hartson had failed a medical at Rangers.
“But the point about this is, I knew about Hartson. John Hartson had started the previous 20 games for Coventry.
“Yeah, there was a possibility that he could pick up an injury, but John Hartson proved himself. He was a top, top quality goalscorer, and that’s what we needed in there, in case something happened to Chris Sutton or Henrik Larsson.
“John Hartson came in and did wonderfully well. But, as you say, you would never have taken that there if AI had been setting the standard.”
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
