Martin O’Neill’s comments on Friday about wanting to make changes to Celtic’s tactical approach were encouraging.
Celtic were many things in the chaotic season just passed, but they weren’t dominant, they weren’t comfortable and they often weren’t convincing.
This is a major departure from many other domestic seasons in recent memory. Instead, the team relied on a fight and togetherness, mostly provided by O’Neill and absent under the two predecessors to his interim spells.
But scoring fewer goals than Rangers and conceding more than Hearts isn’t a sustainable way to win titles — O’Neill has to steer the team in a new direction.
🤔 What changes do you want to see made to Celtic’s football this season?
Martin O'Neill has some plans…
Martin O’Neill’s new Celtic signings will shape the team’s identity
To those who were proponents of Celtic hiring Jens Berthel Askou this summer — of which I was one — the Dane’s distinctive style was appealing.
But to suggest that doing something similar under O’Neill is impossible would be unfair to him, and disregarding of the absurd circumstances he was brought into on two occasions last season.
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This isn’t to say that O’Neill would have his goalkeeper standing in the centre circle the way Askou does — it’s more that the team needs an identity which it lacked so much last season.
If, instead of Askou’s expansive possession football, this new identity is the ‘playing with a zip’ that O’Neill outlines, that’s fine. Any identity that wins is fine.
Brendan Rodgers had a vision but didn’t get the players he needed for it. O’Neill then came in and found the spirit and straightforwardness required to get a tune out of them. Then Wilfried Nancy arrived and desperately failed in his attempt to turn water into wine.
Now that O’Neill has full buy-in from the squad and a full pre-season to work with them, there is finally an opportunity for him to instil this identity.
The elephant in the room is the extent of change expected in the playing squad. Some players are expected to make their big moves, others are expected to be bombed out. Many will leave.
😳 Just the second after Henrik Larsson!
Incredible stuff from the Celtic target at the World Cup…
This is the part that isn’t fully in O’Neill’s hands.
The end of last season was 35 days ago. The beginning of next season is in 33. Celtic are yet to sign a player.
In January, O’Neill publicly admitted to ‘discarding’ some of the transfer targets brought to his desk, as any manager has the right to. Rodgers said the same.
Both would still end up scrambling for deadline day gambles who did nothing more than take up space in an already-bloated squad.
If the club want to repeat that cycle again with O’Neill this summer, they risk things falling flat on their face exactly as they did with Rodgers…
Only this time, they won’t have O’Neill to come in and save the day.
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