Martin O’Neill’s allies in the game are not helping him right now.

One of the most frustrating things about Scottish football is that whenever there are problems the solutions are often blocked because the problems have names, faces and friends.

It is why failing managers sometimes get far longer than they should. It is why chief executives and other powerful figures with friends in the media can receive extraordinarily generous coverage when their performance does not merit it. Scottish football is an insular business, and relationships matter.

Martin O’Neill is in serious trouble right now. We all know that, and we are going to discuss it at great length over the weeks ahead if this situation continues.

There is no point pretending otherwise.

None of us needs to exaggerate what is happening. We do not have to gild the lily. The problems are obvious enough.

But Martin O’Neill has not spent decades in football without making friends. He has cultivated relationships throughout the game and has plenty of allies in the media, at Celtic and elsewhere.

And before O’Neill himself has made any announcement about what happens next, some of those people are already defending him.

Let me be clear about this. I am not saying Martin O’Neill has personally ordered anyone to brief on his behalf, nor am I saying he necessarily wants it done.

I am saying it is happening.

And I do not think it is helping him.

One of the recurring habits of Scottish football is treating supporters as though we are idiots. We are portrayed as reactive, emotional and incapable of controlling ourselves. We are told that we do not understand the game, that we change our minds too quickly and that our judgements are driven entirely by the latest result.

Often this comes from people whose own opinions are every bit as inconsistent.

You only have to look at the coverage of Derek McInnes right now. Three weeks ago, there were serious questions about whether he would even make it to the international break. Today he is being talked about in some quarters like some sort of football colossus.

That is Scottish football. And this is the problem I have with some of O’Neill’s defenders.

They are essentially telling Celtic supporters that we do not understand what we are watching. They are telling us that this is simply a few bad results, that we are overreacting and that we do not appreciate what we have.

But perhaps we know exactly what we are watching. Perhaps our concerns are entirely justified. Perhaps people who watch Celtic every week can recognise when a team does not look fit, does not look properly coached, does not look tactically coherent and does not appear capable of functioning as a unit.

Telling us otherwise does not reassure us. It patronises us.

And instead of making me doubt my own judgement, it makes me increasingly suspicious of the judgement of the people pushing that argument.

I will give you an example. I am automatically cautious when somebody who played under Martin O’Neill and has a close personal relationship with him tells me that everything is going to be fine. Why wouldn’t I be?

Human beings are not objective about their friends.

Likewise, if somebody working at Celtic tells supporters that O’Neill does not deserve the criticism he is getting and has absolutely no reason to consider his position, I am entitled to wonder whether I am hearing objective analysis or the company talking.

Those people may genuinely believe they are helping him.

I do not think they are.

What they are actually doing is reminding supporters just how insular this business can be, how friends look after friends and how often the interests of the institution itself become secondary to personal relationships.

It reinforces the idea that supporters exist outside the important conversations while managers, directors, former players, journalists and executives all move inside the same small circle.

Martin O’Neill and his coaching staff are in trouble because they are not performing adequately. That is the beginning and the end of it. They are in trouble because this season has drifted towards disaster. They are in trouble because there is little evidence that they know what is wrong or how to put it right.

It is not clear that the players are buying into what they are being asked to do. The supporters certainly are not.

And this is not a knee-jerk reaction to one defeat. Doubts which already existed have hardened because of what we have watched this season. Austria changed everything. That performance made it extraordinarily difficult for supporters to sustain belief in this coaching team simply because other people tell us we should.

Since then, the evidence has continued to accumulate.

The team does not look fit enough. It does not look properly coached. It does not look tactically secure. It does not look as though the individual pieces are being moulded into anything coherent.

And yet supporters are increasingly being told to disregard all of that.

We cannot. And we will not.

Someone made a comparison recently which has stayed with me.

When Celtic lost in Seville, we lost to a Porto side coached by José Mourinho, one of the most innovative young managers in European football at the time. Mourinho was doing things other coaches were not doing. His ideas, preparation and methods were cutting edge. He was ahead of the game. Football then evolved again.

And again. And again. The game has moved so quickly that Mourinho himself has spent years facing questions over whether football has moved beyond his own ideas which once made him revolutionary.

That is how fast this sport changes.

So, when people tell us simply to trust methods rooted in an era where they were already being left behind because the man applying them once enjoyed enormous success, they are missing the point. Football does not care about nostalgia.

It does not care what worked twenty years ago. It asks whether it works now.

That is the only question that matters, and no amount of friendly media coverage changes the answer and there is nothing Martin O’Neill’s friends can say which will make what we are watching one per cent better.

There is no interview which will suddenly make the team look fitter. No column will make the tactical problems disappear. No former player telling supporters to calm down will make Celtic more coherent.

And telling us not to believe the evidence of our own eyes is not merely ineffective.

It is insulting.

I am sure that is not the intention. But intent is not the same thing as effect.

The best advice anyone around Martin O’Neill could give him right now is not to tell him how wonderful he is, nor to dismiss the people raising legitimate concerns. It is to tell him the truth. Take the time you need. Look honestly at what is happening. Decide whether you genuinely believe you can fix it.

And then find the dignified way out.

Martin O’Neill does not need this, and Celtic cannot afford to pretend that everything is fine simply because the man at the centre of it is liked and respected. At some point this football club has to grow up and confront its problems honestly.

Right now, Martin O’Neill is one of those problems. I am sorry if his friends do not want to hear that. I am sorry if people who know and like him think that judgement is harsh. But they have all been involved in football long enough to know how this works.

And you know something else? I suspect Martin O’Neill himself knows it better than most.

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