Martin O’Neill is back…for a third time at Celtic.
Not even somebody from outer space would have thought Celtic would find themselves in this crazy scenario before a ball was kicked this season.
O’Neill returning the first time around in October was bonkers enough, but after Wilfried Nancy’s ill-fated spell in charge, the powers that be at Celtic saw sense and fired their coach after 33 days.
Even though O’Neill was no longer in the Parkhead dugout, he was still watching the Hoops from afar, and he shared what he thought of the team’s performances under Nancy.
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Martin O’Neill on watching Celtic games under Wilfried Nancy
As O’Neill headed back to his first day of training, for a third time, on Tuesday, he spoke with Jim White on talkSPORT.
The legendary coach was asked about what went wrong under Nancy, and of course, he couldn’t directly answer that question because he wasn’t in the building.
But given what O’Neill had seen from afar, he noted that Celtic had chances during some matches to ‘take the game beyond the opposition’, but they didn’t.
Add to the fact that Celtic were losing matches, O’Neill thinks the ‘confidence drops almost immediately’, as was portrayed in the game against Rangers.
“That I don’t know, I genuinely don’t know (what went wrong under Nancy),” said O’Neill. “But I know there were a couple of games that I saw, where, had they scored the second goal when they had taken the lead, they could have taken the game beyond the opposition.
“The opponent, somewhere along the way, gets an equalising goal, and then things happen. You lose a bit of confidence. Things like that.
“You say the same, even last week, in the Rangers game. Celtic dominated proceedings. Scored. Could easily have scored some more goals. The Rangers goalkeeper has made some really, really great saves.
“Rangers get back into it in the second half, and confidence drops almost immediately. That’s what happens when you aren’t winning football games. Players’ confidence, no matter how good they are, seems to disintegrate.”
Tell us your starting XI for Martin O’Neill’s first game back
O’Neill compares his younger self to Nancy
This is a brutal ending for Nancy, who was given the Celtic gig after showing great promise in Major League Soccer for the Columbus Crew.
But this has seriously dented his chances of earning another top gig in Europe, as O’Neill sympathises with the Frenchman because he thinks he was in a similar situation at Leicester City during his younger days.
“I drew the parallel with myself when I went to Leicester City, and couldn’t win a game early on,” said O’Neill.
“Obviously, the crowd were unsettled, and it’s difficult at that stage. I got a bit of luck. Won a couple of matches away from home – and that helped quell things for a while. But it was difficult.
“Sometimes, when things are going badly, it’s very, very difficult to pull it around, so I got a bit of luck along the way.
“Eight or nine games, or whatever it was, isn’t very long at all. I know this day and age, the minute they step into a football club, they have to win immediately.
“But that’s very difficult to do. Someone comes in, and he doesn’t know the players that well. The players have to learn what the managers have to do. That takes a little bit of time. And that’s really unfortunate. But in this day and age, it’s instant results.”
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