Celtic had to take a real slice of humble pie in asking Martin O’Neill to come back again.
Despite the team’s huge upturn in form during his first interim spell, the club abruptly installed Wilfried Nancy ahead of their biggest week of the season.
Celtic lost all three games that week, moving to a 3-4-3 system and enduring a rough transition. In the end, Nancy lost six of his eight games in charge.
After a defeat at home in the Glasgow Derby against Rangers, Nancy was sacked and replaced by O’Neill, in a bid to essentially erase the Frenchman’s 33 days in charge.
So what if things had been slightly different?
What do you think is the main reason Wilfried Nancy couldn’t buy a win as Celtic manager? 🤔
The stats are damning…
Martin O’Neill on Celtic and Dermot Desmond
Almost immediately after Nancy’s first game, a wave of media pundits questioned the timing of the appointment, bemoaning the sudden departure of O’Neill.
Ultimately, they turned out to be right.
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Asked about how things panned out, O’Neill admitted that he regretted how it ended, discussing the timeframe he was given for the interim role by Dermot Desmond.
He said: “You can’t change the course of the season but in hindsight I maybe wouldn’t have minded staying on.
“But that was always going to be the case. When Wilfried was coming in I was to step aside and I willingly did that.
“Now, when you think of the situation I think it would have been nice to have stayed on but that wasn’t to be. I’m holding absolutely no-one to account.
“In fact. Sometimes maybe there might have been a bit of relief that you’re going and handing it on. But now you are back again so first of all you have to claw things back.
“There’s an excitement about it but naturally you want to try to win it.
“But for us, on Sunday, as I think Callum McGregor has said in an interview, if we can’t win it it would be a long way back for us if we lost it.
“I felt in my first little spell here – at the end of October, beginning of November – that it was a bit more about stabilising. It was actually trying to win some football matches to get ourselves back on track again. We did that but then we lost a bit of ground.
“So coming back again it feels as if it’s almost like the same thing again, having to fight and coming back on track. The only difference is that this spell would be longer.
“I wasn’t sure how long the other would be. I think Mr Desmond said it was either going to be two weeks or perhaps maybe two months, it was probably somewhere in between. But this time it seems to be till the end of the season.
“You just pick up the position that you’re in and you try and improve, that’s really what I’m trying to do.”
What would you say to Dermot Desmond about Celtic’s transfer model now?
Martin O’Neill’s first interim Celtic spell
In a whirlwind 24 hours, O’Neill went from being a guest on talkSPORT to leading Celtic to a 4-0 win over Falkirk.
He followed that up with an extra-time win over Rangers, in which his bold calls to start Johnny Kenny and introduce Callum Osmand from the cold were backed up.
A last-minute winner from Callum McGregor at St Mirren was one of the sweetest moments of the season.
But the best was probably that night in Rotterdam, in which O’Neill led the Celts to their first win in the Netherlands since he led his original Hoops team to victory in Amsterdam, 24 years ago.
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