This Celtic board needs to back O’Neill and then get out of his way.

Martin O’Neill cut a spiky figure after the game yesterday, and I don’t blame him for it one bit. He snapped at questions about Celtic signings and transfers, but the reason he keeps getting asked is simple. O’Neill himself has done something genuinely interesting.

He has brushed aside the idea that responsibility for deals lies elsewhere and has taken charge of the hunt for players.

The people at the club who previously carried responsibility for that have either dropped the ball or already been shown the door. I am not mourning the departure of the so-called Football Doctor or any of the entourage he brought with him.

They failed. Completely. Paul Tisdale does not deserve a monument at Celtic Park. He left plenty of deadwood behind him as his memorial.

O’Neill understands that much of what Tisdale left was exactly that: deadwood. That is why he does not want to work from Tisdale’s little black book. He does not want his contacts. He does not trust a single bit of it.

When a man gets removed for cause, you go through his previous work, salvage what you can, and bin the rest. O’Neill has clearly decided it is safer to bin the lot. That, though, is not the most interesting part.

The truly interesting element is that someone at Celtic has given O’Neill permission to speak this way and to act this way. He is now exercising his own judgement. Of course, that still requires those above him to back it, but the best thing they can do right now, for him and for the club, is simple. Get out of his way. Sign the paperwork he puts in front of them. Do not ask questions. Do not second-guess.

O’Neill is the football professional. It really is that simple.

No one at Celtic knows better than he does.

He is also uniquely placed to pick up the phone to the absentee landlord and make things happen. Desmond knows better than to second-guess O’Neill. He knows he cannot get away with it. He also knows the debt this club owes to Martin O’Neill, and he knows something else too. His own judgement now sits under serious question.

That may be all the leverage O’Neill needs.

For anything resembling stability to return, O’Neill has to get what he wants. If, as he suggested last night, he has gone past the directors and taken this on himself, making calls, speaking to agents, speaking directly to clubs, then that is the best news we have had in a long time. Yes, deals still need to get done, and they need to get done quickly. But hearing that O’Neill is lining things up himself is exactly what I wanted to hear.

A lot of people inside Celtic Park have burned through whatever credibility they once had. Can you imagine Michael Nicholson getting on the phone to clubs who are already sick of dealing with this small, petty version of Celtic?

We would be lucky if some of them even took the call.

I know for a fact that certain clubs south of the border have no appetite for talking to us. I know that if we approach some clubs in Europe, they will not even entertain the conversation. O’Neill, however, can make them listen.

He is a football man of impeccable standing and integrity. He can bridge those gaps and get people on the phone.

O’Neill can get them to engage.

That matters more than anything right now. We need someone credible at Celtic who carries authority, influence and weight. Even if he does not stay beyond this season, we could do far worse than putting him in charge of rebuilding the football department. Give him the director of football role for three years and let him restructure properly. That would represent a monumental step forward.

Just knowing that O’Neill is the one making the calls makes me feel better. Knowing that he is choosing the players makes me feel better. I trust his judgement. I trust his football brain. We all know his motivations. He is pure Celtic. A living, breathing embodiment of the club. No one understands more clearly what we need if we are going to win this league.

In the end, someone still has to authorise the cheques. But I find it inconceivable that the board would let O’Neill go this far, get this involved, and then refuse to back him. That would render the entire exercise pointless. It would waste everyone’s time and alienate the one man they absolutely cannot afford to alienate.

So although no signings have happened yet, the fact that O’Neill now appears to be running the show convinces me that deals will get done.

The board will expect credit for “backing the manager”. They should not. That is the bare minimum they need to do. They do not deserve praise for doing the jobs they are well paid for. The best thing they can do for O’Neill, and for Celtic, is to give him the support he needs and then leave him the hell alone to do his job.

Right now, that is the only job that matters. Making sure we are champions.