Celtic's Irish coach Martin O'Neill looks on during the UEFA Europa League football match between FC Midtjylland and Celtic FC in Herning, Denmark on November 6, 2025. 10 (Photo by Bo Amstrup / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) / Denmark OUT (Photo by BO AMSTRUP/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)
Let’s be brutal about this. Only very foolish people believed that Martin O’Neill had come in and worked a miracle. Only very foolish people thought that simply having O’Neill in the dugout instead of Rodgers had solved all our problems—because only a fool ever believed Rodgers was the whole problem in the first place.
I’m not particularly bothered about the Europa League.
Our focus must be on the domestic front, and O’Neill plays a style suited to that level. At that level, we have better players than every other team in the country. But when we go abroad and play like that against teams who are technically skilled and physically strong, we get found out.
It’s because our ideas are outdated. Our management team is a throwback to twenty years ago. On top of that, our coaching is wrong, wrong, wrong—and has been for years.
The implications of last night are crystal clear. We need modernisation across the club. Those who thought O’Neill had performed some minor miracle, that he had some kind of magic touch, have now been exposed to a harsh truth: a manager can raise morale, and he can tweak the style just enough to coax better performances from the players.
But that squad is what we’re stuck with until January—and that squad is not good enough, not even for Europe’s second-tier tournament.
No club that persists in doing things the way we’ve done them is going to progress where it matters most. Thankfully, where it does matter most this season is domestically—because without that, the whole structure falls down anyway.
But let’s be honest: Europe is where we want to be judged.
And no-one who’s watched Celtic at any stage of this campaign thought we were ready for that. At no point have we looked like a side capable of putting together a serious run in this competition. There are too many areas of this team lacking in the worst possible way, and last night ripped away the veil and exposed those at this club who have let it down—exposed them in the most humiliating fashion.
No wonder the away end was singing “Sack the board” long before the final whistle.
They now have to pull off something major in terms of appointing a new manager, and I don’t believe they can do it. Genuinely, I don’t believe they will do it. I don’t think they’ll take the bold step and go down the continental route.
These people don’t have the imagination for it.
The critics are out in force today—and rightly so.
The club is getting pilloried from all angles, and it deserves every bit of it. I’m not even going to go after the critics. Why should I? They’re right. We are a structural shamble. But where I will go after someone is Tom English. He’s talking about the so-called Martin O’Neill effect—as if it was a myth.
Nobody with any sense thought O’Neill had solved all our problems.
If anyone genuinely believed that, they were so far up their own backsides they don’t belong anywhere near a grown-up discussion.
O’Neill unburdened the team of a horrible style of play. He found a way to get this team playing front-foot football again. That’s it. It was a stylistic change—not a revolution. And this team needs a revolution.
Nobody sensible thought he had waved a magic wand and healed this team. It is still basic. Too much of it is still poor. There are still players who don’t fit, who don’t belong. It still has far too much wrong with it.
Where the critics are wrong is in dismissing O’Neill’s impact. He has had one. The system is clearly different. The style is clearly more progressive. He’s been daring with selections. He’s been bold in some of his decisions.
But he’s not a magician. No one is.
This squad is what it is—and even now, English won’t point the finger where it belongs. He’ll criticise the managers, he’ll slate the players—but he won’t ask the big question: why hasn’t the structure of this club changed in 20 years? How do performances in Europe correlate with the drift to sheer mediocrity we’ve seen on the pitch?
Someone made a point today that echoes one of my deepest fears: that O’Neill now risks tarnishing his reputation. And I agree.
It would be just like this board to leave him in the hot seat because they don’t want to do their jobs. They don’t want to lead. They don’t want to take the risk of making a real change. And if this all goes wrong—if we fail to beat our domestic rivals or take anything from our remaining European fixtures—then the board will have gambled a legacy for nothing.
To give the board cover and buy them time? To give them a bulletproof vest? No thanks.
O’Neill is a smart man, an accomplished man.
I hope he does the smart thing. If he’s offered the job long-term, I hope he turns it down. We need someone who will put Celtic first. Someone who will force this board to lead, for once. Because there was nothing O’Neill could have done last night to change what we saw.
There were people second-guessing his team selection. I’ve read people moaning about shape.
What he did at the start of that match was about as good as it gets under the circumstances.
Nobody is turning Tony Ralston into a top-class right-back. Nobody is turning Liam Scales into a top-class centre-back. All the problems we’ve had since pre-season—and before—have been lurking on the far side of the loop, waiting.
And now they’re here.
January is massive. January is about preparing for the summer. And if we don’t have a new manager in place by then, not one person on that Celtic board deserves to be in post by the start of the next campaign.
O’Neill’s critics are dead wrong to call him a busted flush. Even with this team, he could still win the league. But that shouldn’t be the endgame.
If this board leaves it to him, it will be an abrogation of responsibility—again. Celtic has to stop thinking in the short-term. It has to stop acting like a parochial outfit. It has to think beyond the next 90 minutes.
Right now, we’ve got cowards running our club. Cowards who have spent the last week and a half hiding behind a club legend.
So no, I’m not getting on O’Neill’s back. No more than I would’ve gotten on Brendan’s if he was still in that dugout.
The manager is not the problem. He never was.
If it took last night to finally slap some sense into people, then maybe it was a worthwhile evening after all.
Because something, anything, has to wake this club up.
We were outclassed in every department but especially tactically, qualitatively and in respect to off the field the efficiency of how to run a football club.
A club with a fifth of our resources walks all over us and could easily have scored at least 6 if not for Kasper Schemeichel.
Why?
They have a footballing plan that the entire club has bought into which is modelled on a style of play which has the ambition to succeed in Europe.
We were that team last year
But we are hamstrung by a board intent on holding us back from staying at such lofty heights.
It seems the athletic, tall and technically gifted lads BR had been asking for for years are all the rage now and not so much your wee guys or your tall but weak and slow guys.
This is the lack of European ambition BR seen coming in the form of trouncings not from a PSG but from a wee club with fresh ideas and a hungry team.
We contained them for 20 minutes but the goals were in the post and we ended up unable keep a hold of the ball until they dropped a few gears in the 2nd half.
It reminded me of the trouncing we got from the technically gifted big youngsters of Ajax in pre-season who looked as if they could score for fun against us.
This hamstrung team of ours might still win in Scotland if we get new players in in January and a new modern manager whose European vision gets backed.
At least we have 80 million in the bank though and Midtjylland don’t eh ?
How much have Midjtylland spent on players? Is their wage bill way more than ours?
They’re most expensive player cost 5.5 million euros in 2024.
How did Midtjylland fair in last years CL ?
They didn’t play in it. They didn’t win their league title either. The difference is they play in a competitive league whilst ours is usually over before its started.
We got straight in courtesy of our league being shite and did really well but let’s remember we had a decent draw. We got beat 7-1 and won 3 games out of 10. Apart from RBL we beat Young Boys and S Bratislava. A good defensive performance against Bruges and Atalanta.
You could say YB and SB dont belong in the UCL like ourselves.
You might find we could spend the entire £80m and still not do as well as last year though.
Look and see how teams like Midjtylland and Bodo Glimt rip us apart while spending less than us.
Its not rocket science!
So I referenced last year as a comparison to your question on Midtjylland spend.
Midtjylland lost in the qualifiers for the CL so you are correct they didn’t play in it because they weren’t good enough to get there.
Btw the team who knocked them out in the CL qualifiers was Slovan Bratislava over 2 legs.
Yes ,the same team we humped 5-1 a few weeks later.
So out team cost more but it earned us £40 million more than theirs.
This worked last year but we needed refreshing and replacements not an unemployed unfit striker and a Japanese player who hasn’t scored for a year.
I’ve done some checking and our annual budget is at least three times theirs. And that was obvious on the field, wasn’t it? /s
We were beaten by a very good team last night, in fact I fancy they could win the trophy, and at 40/1 they are worth a bet. I’m betting them anyway, for they are as good as any team I have seen so far in the same comp. Roma are 2nd favs and I rate Midtjylland above them.
Talking of which…. I thought at first I was imagining it, but watching the Huns being pumped by the Pope’s 11 last night, during the second half and as part of the hun’s protest, a section of their fans started singing “If you hate the Glasgow Rangers clap your hands.” I was shocked and stunned, but after I stopped clapping I could hardly get my head around it, we all know how hateful they are but that was pathetic in the extreme. How low can you get, does their hate know no bounds?
You would think that when their team are going for another record that they would at least give them a bit of encouragement. They are already the worst team ever in the Champions League and now they are bursting a gut in the Europa League to emulate that feat.
The Sons of Satan really are the pits!
Correction…..they actually sang ‘If you hate the fkn Rangers, clap your hands’
Lol
I heard the song but couldn’t make out the target of their hate so presumed it was Thelwell again or Stewart.
I firmly believe we are all good ,deep down we are all full of love and compassion so perhaps this was a subconscious cry that they hate what they are.The truly good part of them hates the bigotry many of them are steeped in ?
Nah me neither. It’s just their existential angst or cognitive dissonance at losing all the time whilst thinking they’re simply the best.
“We were beaten by a very good team last night, in fact I fancy they could win the trophy”
Maybe, but a few months back they had to go to extra time over two legs to get past Hibs.
I watched them against Hibs and they were even then by far the better side. Their winning goal, an overhead kick, was special and well deserved. Since then though they have come on in leaps and bounds and are now a formidable force.
I agree. I was really making the point that Hibs gave them a tougher contest than we did.
If we don’t get a manager in soon we risk making a mess of the January window which is something we do routinely anyway. From now until the Glasgow derby this is the squad we’ll have, it’s a really tough run that will define our season and there’ll be a managerial change in amongst it, what could go wrong?
JT
says:
November 3, 2025 at 10:49 pm
What’s happened to Chris? A few weeks ago he was constantly on here if anyone as much as insinuated that perhaps there was something at fault with Brendan’s management.
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Well JT
Last night we were destroyed first half and I don’t think that would have been the case under Rodgers as I think he would have set us out to contain the Danes better.
There was no cover for Ralston, no account of the fact that an extremely limited player who is completely out of his depth at this level was facing a big step up in quality compared to the SPFL.
No Maeda to help him out.
No Bernardo either brought on either when we seen how the pattern of the match was going and how we were so open.
I don’t blame an old man brought out of retirement, that this is the case shows how pathetic our board is.
I believe we got the new manager bounce for MONs first 2 matches but last night showed up where we really are.
Agree about the shortcomings of our board absolutely no ambition or imagination, but in my opinion BR has also been complicit in the stagnation in our playing style, which just didn’t suit the players available to him, and obstinately he would not countenance any change in the system.
He was short of players in certain areas of the team and recent injuries didn’t help, but the slump in performances has been happening for almost a year.
I think we would all agree that every area of the club has been underperforming for sometime and the board have to take most of the blame for this stagnation.
The title has to be the main target this season, it is unbelievable that this might be beyond us, but that scenario is a possibility and make no mistake this board and BR are responsible for this situation.
January is a notoriously hard window to bring in players, but this board had better get off their axses and pull a few rabbits out of the hat to help the new manager, whoever that may be.
Big change in the running of our club is needed, or I can see some parts of our upper stands being covered in adverts once again.
I wonder if that really would have been the case. Maeda didn’t start because he was recovering from injury and his game time was being monitored. Hatate possibly would have started. The defence under Brendan might have included Donovan and Murray. It is possible and hopeful, that both will become first team regulars but their limited exposure in high pressure games has proved costly. Callum Osmand would still be with the B team.
While there are other issues over recruitment, one major failure over successive seasons is the failure to recruit a proper defensive midfield player. Perhaps these are going out of fashion, but a lot of the difficulties Celtic experience is having a midfield that blocks very little. It was even evident last Sunday. Prior to becoming manager, O’Neill in his pundit role made reference to the lack of physicality in this Celtic team. There may be al lot of technically good footballers, but the balance is not there, and Brendan had been there for more than 2 seasons.
‘Brendan had been there for more than 2 seasons.’
And last year under Brendan we broke a goalscoring record, achieved a domestic double and went further in the CL than we have for a decade or so.
BR had been going on about getting bigger stronger lads in since he came back.
The team needed an overhaul in the summer as it was getting stale but instead we got our record breaking attackers sold off and replaced with an unemployed unfit striker and a Japanese player who hasn’t scored in a year.
BR never stood a chance.
The domestic stuff is irrelevant. The opposition. Is the poorest it’s ever been.
The one bright spot for me is that Hatate did NOT start. I’ve been doing an informal player-cam on him for the last few months and he’s been ABYSMALLY bad. The first-touch layoffs that he loves invariably give away possession, his passing generally has been sideways or backwards and even then very inaccurate. And he’s been pulling out of tackles. How professional management puts him on the field beggars belief.
Agreed, I used to be a Hatate fan but no longer, he is sloppy and looks disinterested.
It’s amazing that last year we were blaming Hatate being out, as the reason we lost the cup final to an abysmal Aberdeen team.
Not one of us will point the finger of blame at MON…no chance !
Our chickens came home to roost last night, and re-emphasised what we have been saying about BR, regression and overall neglect of our squad, and quite frankly, our club, from top to bottom!
Once we got clear of the nostalgic euphoria, it was clear that it was still the same group of players, that albeit, had benefitted from MON’s timely confidence intervention .
I’ve seen and heard that Knutsen is the favourite to be appointed but I think vast swathes of us are very doubtful of this, due to who we have running this club.
For me, he would be the ideal choice, and I sincerely hope we do get him. We not only require freshness but a completely fresh broom to clean out the mess that BR proclaimed about for months.
Before last night’s match, I wasn’t fully aware as to how good this FC Midtjylland were. However, the young coach that was part of the backroom staff, has came in and revitalised them. Plenty of young, dynamic talent and they may well go far in this competition.
Conversely, it is so sad to see us toil badly, yet again, in Europe’s second tier competition.
Another prolonged example, if any were required, as to how much this squad has been allowed to regress, rather than replenished !
Such a shame for young Osmand, and I sincerely hope it’s not as bad, as it looks, and that he’s back soon.
As someone has mentioned, are all these hamstring/muscle injuries just bad luck or symptomatic of the complete malaise that runs through our club.
I’m sure that MON & SM will steady the ship domestically, but a new manager needs to be announced soon, in order to give him some time for the forthcoming January window. Europe should just be written off, once more, as we are not good enough against these young, talented and dynamic teams !
Shame on this board of ours, and we can only hope that there soon may be some positive news on the manager front ! HH
If anything positive came out of last night, its that the board won’t be able to say to whoever the eventual new manager is, that the squad is great and no real money has to spent in January, also, if the board are looking for a yes man, as I expect, then last night should give the new manager a bit more leverage.
suspect, not expect.
Yes our board have definitely dragged us backwards,but I think Scottish football in general is just so poor ,look at the euro tables,years ago Scottish teams were getting beat by teams from the big five ,now European minnows are beating us ,how is this , midjtylland has a capacity of 12,000 but they’re team played us off the park and all the Scottish teams in Europe are just as bad,like they say the spfl is indeed a diddy Mickey mouse league,which if we’re not careful we might not even win that.
I’ve always said that we should be judged against teams with similar resources. We’re fast to do that when we come up against teams from the Big Five leagues but don’t do the same in reverse when our opponents, like those last night, have but a fraction of our money to spend.
It’s a basic business paradigm born out by an analysis of leagues across Europe where league standings and budget size correlate very closely. For instance – and year after year! – Villareal can outperform us in Europe with a fraction of our resources. Why is that?
Groundhog day once again,but not to worry the 60,000 BENJAMINS in our support will see to that all is well and and good at the next home game.
KERCHIN£.
Great article and bang on the money.
As a complete cynic when it comes to Celtic under the ownership of DD and the Dictatorship of PL my tuppence worth would be MON was always the beard for PL to insert this years NL after the evacuation of PLs Arch Nemesis BR.
The good news for DD and PL is that MON will continue until after the January Transfer window closes ( and that’s nonsense about it being “notoriously difficult” Peter but keep telling everyone that!) and MON will save Celtic millions in not buying any players. But look out for lots of loans! PL will then appoint another Man as “Head Coach” ( SM? ) but it doesn’t matter because the qualifiers will be too soon for any new players anyway. Yippee! Another year gone! Another easy salary banked for PL and MN and another dividend paid for DD ( he gets them in perpetuity anyway!)
It’s Groundhog Day at Grace Brothers!
So have Midtjylland spent £80m? Is their wage bill way higher than ours? If Brendan had spent £80m would we have played them off the park? Kevin Mbabu their right back who James was having a dig at would walk into our team. As James rightly said nobody in our support has ever heard of him. I looked him up and Midjtylland got him on a free. They haven’t spent more than us. They are better organised and better players better coached. Everyone of them including the subs would walk into our team.
If we are going to sack the board why are we clinging on to Desmond who is in charge of everyone?
How much CL money did Midtjylland generate last year with their wage bill and transfer spend compared to how much we generated in the CL with ours ?
It’s strange how people who are so detested and hated wanna cling on to the positions that bring the said hatred to their doors…
I suppose that £800,000 plus bonuses for Lucan explains why !
I don’t Midtjyland spent even £8 on players never mind £80m. They’re one of the top clubs in Europe for data analytics recruitment, which appears to be the only way forward for clubs outwith the big spenders.