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O’Neill Or Strachan? Who Was The Better Celtic Boss?

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If, as might well be the case, we’ve seen the last of Gordon Strachan as Scotland boss, it will be somewhat sad, yet oddly fitting, that Martin O’Neill is the guy responsible.

I like both these guys. It’s impossible not to.

They are both part of our club, part of its soul.

Gordon Strachan didn’t start out that way, but in his four years at Celtic Park we grew on him and our club grew inside him until it was inevitable.

He is now part of the Family.

Martin O’Neill was different. He grew up with this, with us, with our club.

He didn’t have to join the Family, he was almost born into it.

Like a lot of Celtic fans, I was starved of success growing up.

My abiding memories were of Rangers winning leagues, bookended by a day at Celtic Park against Dundee and another against St Johnstone.

I didn’t grow up with the sweet taste of victory.

I swallowed the bitter fruit of defeat over and over again.

Fergus McCann and Wim Jansen were the first real heroes of my adult life, and the former was misunderstood and the latter was off almost as soon as he arrived.

The guys who gave me the glory I missed out on were these two; one a diminutive Scot graced with wonderful playing skills and who had terrorised us at Aberdeen and the other a winner of the European Cup who enjoyed attending court cases in his spare time.

They couldn’t have been more different in background, style or approach … but they worked wonders at Celtic Park.

For years, I’ve pondered on their respective achievements before, during and since their time at our club and I hate that I’ve forced myself to decide who was the greater manager, because they have both succeeded in the game and at Celtic beyond what many others will ever do in their careers.

Having broken it all down I have to give the honour to Martin O’Neill.

One word sums up my reasoning; Seville.

I’d love to say it comes down to more than that, to make it a rational argument rather than an emotional one, but I can’t.

Because in many ways, Gordon actually has the more impressive record, if you’re looking at it right.

Their trophy haul was kind of similar, with Martin winning three league titles, three Scottish Cups and a League Cup as well as getting to that epic final.

He was at the club five years.

Gordon won three titles, a Scottish Cup and two League Cups.

He never reached a European Final but he led us out of the Group Stages of the Champions League twice, which Martin never managed, and his similar trophy take has to be measured in light of his having spent one full year less at the club than his predecessor did.

Martin won a domestic treble, which Gordon never did.

But Gordon won three titles in a row, and that’s pretty impressive in itself.

You also have to consider that Gordon won, and lost, a title on the final day and balance that with the fact that Martin lost both of his the same way.

That, too, is very good going and makes these guys standout coaches in our history.

In terms of their win ratio, Martin O’Neill’s record – at 75% – is the highest in the history of the club, moving him ahead of even the great Jock Stein.

Gordon is some ways behind; indeed his win average of 65% has him behind Jock, Neil Lennon, Ronny Deila and even John Barnes, with the latter proving that those kind of stats aren’t really a great judge of anything.

Stein aside, Gordon has a good case for having achieved far more than any of them.

Outside of Celtic Park, Martin’s record is easily the most impressive.

He has a Conference title with Wycombe, with whom he also won two FA Trophies.

At Leicester, where he’s considered an icon, he won two League Cup’s.

Gordon, in contrast, has a runner up place in an FA Cup final to look back on outside of his career at Celtic Park.

What you have to do beyond that is look at their records with their national teams.

Gordon has managed 25 games with a win ratio of an impressive 48%.

Martin has managed Ireland for 20 matches, with a win ratio of 40%.

Broken down into its constituent parts, Martin has eight wins seven draws and five losses from his games.

Gordon has twelve wins, five draws and eight defeats.

Some of those defeats and draws have been costly, and that might well be the difference.

In the head to head between the two, he came out on top, after all, with a win and a draw.

What has cost Scotland is our record elsewhere.

The rest boils down to who has the best players and it’s here I think that you can make a case for Gordon as the superior coach.

After all, at Celtic Martin was able to call on the talents of guys like Sutton, Larsson, Moravcik and others.

Gordon signed good players, like Nakamura, but he never had the real geniuses in his side.

Likewise, with Ireland O’Neill arguably works with far better footballers than are available to his counterpart.

Is it really that simple?

Some would say so.

In the end, for me this is an emotional debate more than an intellectual one. These guys are both exceptionally good coaches, with fine records to boast of, but neither would ever be considered in the absolute top bracket with people like Stein and Ferguson.

Nevertheless, their countries are lucky to have them as our club was.

It would be sad if Martin O’Neill ended the Scotland managerial career of Gordon Strachan, but from the moment the draw was made I think we all fancied Germany and Poland to top the group and so the playoff spot was always going to come down to which of the two could handle the pressure and the task best.

With a win and a draw against the World Champions it’s clear that Martin O’Neill and his players accomplished that.

In many ways, we Celtic fans have been comparing their records a long time, as we will one day be able to compare those with the achievements of Neil Lennon and Ronny Deila. This is what football fans do, of course, and if I’ve ranked O’Neill more highly it’s because of that one shining moment, that achievement which beats all the rest, going to a European final.

When I told my old man I was writing this piece he summed it up for me by asking me if I remembered every Celtic cup final, and every league title I’ve seen.

I do remember most of them, but the specifics of others have receded into memory, as these things do.

But I remember every second of that final, even the parts I wish I didn’t.

It’s entered our folklore, and our hearts like few other events ever will.

Few of us recall it as a glorious defeat; rather it was a celebration of everything that makes Celtic great.

Could Gordon have got us there? Further?

That question tantalises me.

With those players at his disposal I wouldn’t have bet against him, but fate never meant that to be.

Instead it was Martin, the man from Kilrea, who was at the helm, with those gifted footballers around him, and but for some awful luck, the beginnings of the Mourinho legend and an injury which kept John Hartson out of the game Martin O’Neill’s record as a coach would look even more impressive.

So yes, Martin wins it for me but not by much.

I’d like to know what you all think.

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  • SFTB says:

    A very fair treatment of a difficult topic in terms of the managers’ records. It is impossible to underestimate the emotional impact of Seville, but its football importance can be exaggerated. Losing a UEFA final was a level achieved by Alaves, Fulham, Espanyol, Middlesborough, Sporting, Werder Bremen, Braga and, of course, the deid club.

    If only we could have been more fair and even handed when WGS was here. He was treated very badly by our fans at the time.

  • Charlie Dornan says:

    The Football played under the Blessed Martin was ,at times ,Functional,despite the Talents of Henrik,and I also feel that ,at times ,Lubo was under-used by Him.Wee Strachan achieved his successes with an arguably weaker set of Players,he lost his Big-Earners ,and achieved his Successes whilst cutting the Wage-Bill….Peter Lawwell and Desmond were chuffed by this.Rightly or Wrongly ,and it’s all about Opinions here ,Wee Gordon gets my Vote . (as a PS here,the night before Jinky’s Funeral,I went to a Rain-Swept Celtic Park to pay my own Tribute….Gordon Strachan and his Wife drove up,and quietly joined the Queue of Fans to pay their own Respects…For that Unanounced Unpublicised Act on his part ,Strachan became a Celtic Great….)

  • ewanbhoy says:

    One thing I will say is that Gordon’s teams played the more attractive football and Martin was one very lucky manager to inherit a certain Henrik Larsson.

  • johnnyah says:

    loved them both but for me Gordon Strachan did the better job. His brief was a lot different to Martin O’Neill’s. GS had to be successful (and was) whilst reducing the wage bill and he had nowhere near the sort of money MON had to spend. it angered me that a section of our fans never really accepted GS for whatever reason. he never let the club down once and referred to us as “we” after he left.

  • MinceCFC says:

    Martin O’Neill spent fortunes and left Celtic in a bit of a state. Celtic were spending unsustainably during MON’s time.

    Gordon Strachan spent much less heavily, Celtic recovered huge debts during his reign, yet our success level was every bit as good, if not better than MON’s time.

    So, Strachan for me.

  • Cruzeman72 says:

    Strachan for me. I’ve always thought mon underachieved a bit considering the squad he had.

    Whereas wgs had an inferior group of players but somehow managed to get to 2nd stage of cl.

    Also have to remember that the Seville run was against 2nd tier european opposition.

  • lanarkbhoy says:

    The answer is without argument O’Neill. In Strachan’s final season we defeated Rangers in the Ner’day derby. The following game was Dundee Utd at CP, at HT we were cruising at 2-0. In the 2nd half Craig Levien used Willo Flood to man Mark Scott Brown, who at that time had just had his best 45 min in a hoops jersey, and nulified him, we held on for a very lucky 2-2. I didn’t go back that season because at that point I realised Strachan had taken his eye of the ball, and signed Flood during that window!!!! He blew the league and gifted it, to the now Sevco, instead of winning four in a row. When he resigned his buddy Mark McGhee went public that he told his friends at the New Year he would leave Celtic. He went through the motions in the second half of his final season. Like he is today, many times he was an embarrassment to the club with media interviews.

  • geobhoy says:

    Martin actually grew up a Sunderland fan whilst the rest of his family were all GAA men so he never grew up in the Celtic way. He was just worshipped more due to him being a Norman Iron Catholic. Disgrace really that he was idolised more than Gordon, who was every bit as passionate about Celtic, just because of his NI upbringing. Wee Gordon for me every day, a fraction of MoNs budget and done better.

  • Liam Brown says:

    2 good men, very hard to separate them , but i am going to go for wee Gordon, and say he is the better coach, He had very little money compared to Martin i would also have to say that he represented our club in a fantastic way , when Tommy Burns died, have a look at his press conference on you tube and watch his love for Tommy, I met him on the Sunday morning after it , his wife and him where down to see all the tributes outside Celtic park, I personally shook his hand and thanked him on what he had said about Tommy , I think his love for Celtic became very personal from that day , Although l don’t think he appreciated me saying that he would get the same love from us Celtic fans when he dies, changed days for me hoping, from the jungle that big Roy Aitken would launch him into the jungle

  • Joe says:

    No comparison. We Strachan was far and away the better manager. O’Neil got lucky, inherited Larsson and Lubo, was given obscene money to spend which to be fair, was spent wisely on Sutton, Lennon, Thompson and Hartson.
    By the time O’Neil threw away the league in his last season, allowed the Europa Cup to slip away because he made poor team selections in Seville, the players he had spent all the money on were past their best and a bit childish when left out. Sutton, Petrov, Thompson all sulked if they were subs, or subbed. They had become Martin’s pets. WGS created a team from the dregs of O’Neils faltering squad and made them play better, fight better, support each other better, and simply destroy anyone they played. For me, WGS wins hands-down. O’Neil should have been fired in his last year when with four games to play, he threw away a five point lead to lose the league to the old Rangers on the last day. We had beaten them with four games to play yet managed to throw the league away.

  • dannybhoy says:

    Gordon Strachan all day long. Love MON and will never forget Seville but Strachan is/was the better manager, and had to work harder for his success imo. He had to win championships and reduce the wage bill at the same time. Also had a very decent crack at the CL, got us out the group stage twice. MON had more money to spend than any manager in Celtic’s history. Strachan’s teams played better football too. Was always harder for Strachan to be accepted cos he wasn’t a “Celtic man” and the way he was treated by a minority of our fans was pretty disgraceful.

  • jimmy says:

    Very close call for me loved when both these men were in charge almost to difficult to separate there records, martin won the treble first season had the 6-2 game 103 points second season, Seville 77 home games undefeated the double of season 03/04 was also a great season and possibly his best in charge and the whitewash of them 7 wins in total in a row over them I think but he did have the genius of Larsson and far more money to spend, wee Gordon worked wonders while downsizing cutting wage bill and ran away with the league first season won league cup, also a double second season and that night at tannadice was special coming back in the last few weeks to win 3 in a row also some memorable nights in Europe beating man u, ac milan, benfica etc last 16 twice who knows what Strachan might have achieved with a Larsson or Sutton or hartson,wee Gordon did have a job on when he took over but so did martin we had finished 21 points behind them season before and looked to be years behind them and no one believed he could turn it round so quickly against a rangers team which were spending millions on big name players, both men deserve great credit for the jobs they done and they are now a big part of our history and arguments could be made for one being better than other, in terms of who will go down a better manager for us I would probably give it to o,neill slightly bigger achievments overall, but only just they are both besttwo celts managers in my lifetime and will always be fondly remembered HAIL HAIL

  • Dixie Robinson says:

    If Henrik had played in Gordon’s team it would have been a no brainier.

  • Jimthetim says:

    What a great article. And good comments. I can’t make my mind up. I’m calling it a draw. But Seville is so memorable, “It was the best of times and the worst of times”.

  • ewanbhoy says:

    One other thing I will say is that Gordon was far more committed to Celtic…..he was there 7 days a week, from early morning to last thing at night…he gave us everything, whereas Martin didn’t even live in Scotland…..he flew up on the Friday afternoon, picked his favourite 11, played the game and flew back home straight after the game.
    Some people call it the O’Neill years but for me it was never that and I think for most we know it was the Larsson years. He was the one that made us a great team scoring great goals and getting us to Seville.
    When Martin left, he left us in a mess but Gordon against the odds and alot of fans(a bit like Ronny) came in and was brilliant.
    I think easily Gordon wins this debate.

    • Jimthetim says:

      Didn’t know that about MON.

    • Ed67 says:

      What total nonsense.O’neil lived in the west end of Glasgow -he spent all week at Celtic Park although he left much of the daily training to Steve Walford in order to maximise his impact when he did attend.
      The post Seville Champions league team that played Lyon,Bayern and Anderlecht played very attractive football-L’equipe raved about their football style in the 2-0 home win against Lyon.That team was desperately unlucky not to go through to the last 16.
      I am an admirer of Strachan but to suggest his teams played more attractive football than O’neills is verging on the ridiculous.Does anyone remember the last 18 months under Strachan-dull and unimaginative 442..

  • Stephen says:

    Strachan achieved much with less resources

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