O’Neill thanked the board for the transfer window. This is his Celtic squad.

There is always a moment during one of Celtic’s many failed transfer windows when you feel that the manager cannot possibly take any more. You feel that he cannot possibly tolerate another bit of it.

And yet no one has so far walked out during a transfer window and brought the full horror into the public gaze in a way that is unmistakable.

Martin O’Neill certainly came close to resigning over his coaching staff. But as far as the transfer window goes, he did what every other person who’s been in that job in recent years was content to do. He took what he was offered. He took what he was given.

I spoke the other day about Total Recall, and about Harry from work, who tells Douglas Quaid not to go. It does not matter what your interpretation of that movie is. If you believe that moment when Harry warns him is real, then Quaid has been given a warning about exactly what he’s about to do.

He ignores it, goes anyway and straps himself into the chair.

After a while of seeing people ignore warnings over and over again, you have to ask about their own judgement. The people who cause the mess remain responsible for causing it. But that does not mean the Douglas Quaids and the Martin O’Neills have no responsibility for the decisions that put them there.

If you have seen the previous manager of this club completely ignored, disregarded and then smeared, do you really want to put your trust in the people who did that?

Do you want to continue trusting them even when they ignore you and disregard your advice? How long before you’re being smeared too? How long before they’re pointing their finger at you for all of their mistakes?

And when that day comes, are you really going to pretend that one of the architects of your situation is not the guy in the mirror? Are you really going to stand in front of people and bullshit that none of the responsibility lies with you? How many warnings do these people need? How many warnings do they get?

The next person who sits in this chair, the next person who takes this job, is going to know what they did here. Before he even does a thing, he will know the frustration and difficulty that come with placing his reputation in their hands. You cannot watch the way these people behave towards others and simply assume it can’t happen to you.

Every time O’Neill went in front of the media over the summer and asked for something, they ignored him. Every single time he told the fans or the media that he expected business to be done, that he knew what needed to be done, a week went by. Then two weeks went by. And nothing was done.

He said he wanted quality over quantity. Then they went and signed six players on the final day before European registration closed, when the biggest issue facing the club had already been settled against us. He had been publicly humiliated and embarrassed, standing on that touchline in Austria, and the problems that were obvious to him and to the rest of the coaching team still didn’t get addressed.

Do we blame the board for that? Yes. Of course we do. But eventually, doesn’t his acceptance of it become part of the problem too?

Don’t you have to point the finger at the person who ignored all that advice to watch these people, not to put his reputation in their hands? The person who had to make a thermonuclear threat to get his coaching staff? The man who had to beg every step of the way, even from his hospital bed, after running himself into the ground for these people?

At the end of it all, he sat there in front of the media when the window closed and professed himself happy with the squad. He offered his thanks to the people who made only the most minimal effort to get him his players.

After all the requests, after all the delays, after all the things that weren’t done, that is the message the supporters get. That is a choice. Happy with the squad. Thanks to the board.

The confrontation over his coaching staff matters because it shows that he was prepared to force an issue when he considered it important enough. He was prepared to make his position clear. So why, when it came to the players those coaches would be working with, did the summer end with him accepting the outcome and offering his gratitude?

Last night, Stephen McGowan said Celtic knew they needed a number six, had a player in their sights before the window closed and decided not to sign him.

That player has since moved to the Middle East.

McGowan did not name him, and the published comments do not establish whether Celtic made a bid or how far any discussions progressed. But his central contention is clear: the club recognised the need and chose not to proceed with a player it had identified.

I may be wrong about who that player is, but there is a plausible candidate, and his name is Mathys De Carvalho. His position, age and move to Saudi Arabia make him worth looking at. That is an identification based on the available clues, not confirmation that he was the man McGowan meant.

What we can establish is that Lyon announced his move to Al-Diriyah on 7 September. He is 21 and left with 22 first-team appearances to his name. The announced fee was €1.1 million, with Lyon also retaining an interest in the profit from a future transfer.

Eight of his first team appearances were in the Europa League, and he is a Portuguese midfielder developed through Lyon’s academy.

So, there is European experience there, and he is in exactly the age bracket we usually shop around in. You can see why his name fits the discussion.

If he was the player, why didn’t we go for him? Did we know the Saudi move was in the post and decide to leave it alone? Did an approach to his agent establish that he already had his heart set on going there? The transfer fee alone doesn’t tell us what wages he wanted or whether he would have accepted a move to Celtic.

Those are unanswered questions. I’m not going to pretend we could definitely have persuaded him to come.

But whether McGowan meant De Carvalho or somebody else, the central issue remains: we recognised that a position needed filled, and the window ended with that need still staring us in the face … and the board didn’t even try to get things done.

How much of that is down to the board? Plenty of it. Their responsibility is enormous. But that does not remove the manager’s responsibility for what he accepts, what he endorses and what he tells us about the result.

Anyone who says that the manager didn’t build this squad and therefore bears no responsibility for it is letting O’Neill off the hook in a big, big way.

He might not control the negotiations. He might not get the final say on the money. But he controls whether he sits in front of us afterwards and gives the outcome his blessing.

I’m tired of giving Celtic managers who allow this, who tolerate this, who accept this, a free pass when they don’t deserve one.

How many times do we have to say that entrusting those people with your future is putting your reputation in their hands? Over and over again, it’s been pointed out on podcasts and blogs and all across social media.

That is Doug Quaid hearing a horror story about Recall from someone he knows at work and deciding to go anyway. The warning doesn’t make the company blameless if something goes wrong. But neither does the company’s responsibility make his decision a sensible one. At some point, you have to ask why he thought he would be the exception.

I cannot hold the board solely accountable for the state of this squad when the manager has accepted it and publicly endorsed it. He has weapons at his disposal. He has means at his disposal if he wants to use them. After last season, he was at the height of his powers and had enormous credibility with the rank-and-file supporters.

Had he chosen to take his frustrations public, every one of us would have been on his side. He could have told us what remained missing. He could have made clear that the late arrivals did not address every problem.

Instead, he chose to tell us he was happy, and now we’re supposed to discuss the weaknesses in the squad as though he had no part in accepting them.

Like it or not, this is a Martin O’Neill team now.

He is responsible for how it is organised, how it plays and whether it makes the most of the players available. And even a self-styled board critic such as me is not going to pretend that their failures excuse every one of his.

The old story about the frog and the scorpion comes automatically to mind.

A scorpion has to cross a river and asks a frog to take him. At first, the frog doesn’t want to, because a scorpion is a dangerous creature with a sting in its tail. But the scorpion assures him that he isn’t stupid. If he stings the frog, they will both drown.

So, the frog lets the scorpion scamper onto his back and starts to swim across the river. He gets about three-quarters of the way there when he feels a sting in his back. Just before the poison takes hold, sending both of them to the bottom, he asks the scorpion, “Why did you do that? Now we’re both going to die.”

And the scorpion tells him, “I’m a scorpion. That’s just what I do.”

That doesn’t absolve the scorpion.

But the frog knew what he was carrying.

And that’s what O’Neill put his trust in, and so he has the team he deserves and he owns it.

What else is there to say?

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