{"id":674728,"date":"2026-01-05T05:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T05:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/674728\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T05:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T05:03:18","slug":"martin-oneill-has-celtic-cover-broken-amid-rising-wilfried-nancy-pressure-after-arriving-in-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/674728\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin O’Neill has Celtic cover broken amid rising Wilfried Nancy pressure after arriving in Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Parkhead icon made an impressive return to Glasgow’s east end before stepping aside for the Frenchman\"FormerFormer Celtic manager Martin O’Neill<\/p>\n

Legendary boss Martin O’Neill <\/a>has lifted the lid on Dermot Desmond “forcing through” a Celtic transfer as he revisited his first term in the Parkhead dugout.<\/p>\n

O’Neill is fresh from his second stint in the hot seat – having led the club to seven wins from eight games before Wilfried Nancy<\/a> was named as boss. The Frenchman is facing major pressure after just two wins in eight games.<\/p>\n

The former Columbus Crew boss has stuck by his 3-4-3 football philosophy in place at Parkhead despite major slip ups including defeat to league leaders Hearts and losing the Premier Sports Cup final to St Mirren. Defeat to Rangers at Celtic Park – that saw Danny Rohl’s side pull level with the Hoops in second spot in the Premiership – has proven to be the final straw for some punters.<\/p>\n

Protests against the Celtic<\/a> board and under-fire gaffer took place outside of the stadium following the 3-1 loss to the Light Blues on home turf. <\/a>During Nancy’s dismal start, fans have continued to chant O’Neill’s name from the stands.<\/p>\n

But the 73-year-old appears to be focussing on his previous successful stint in Glasgow’s east end that earned him iconic status. As part of a Sky Sports documentary aired this weekend<\/a> on John Hartson’s career, he opened up on the principal shareholder’s role in bringing the Welshman to the club in 2001.<\/p>\n

Discussing Hartson, who Rangers infamously had the chance to sign before he pulled on the green and white hoops, he said: \u201cWe were a year into proceedings at Celtic, we\u2019d just won the league and the treble.<\/p>\n

Martin O’Neill and John Hartson<\/p>\n

“Essentially, we had Chris Sutton and Henrik Larsson. So if anything happened to any of those two, it was going to be a struggle, particularly with European football.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe very obvious thing was to try and get a centre forward who could maybe compete for a place with them, and John, to me, was the obvious target.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf his knees had been falling apart, I wouldn\u2019t have spent the club\u2019s money on somebody who\u2019s not going to play any of the games.<\/p>\n

\u201cDermot Desmond asked, \u2018do you want to go and do it? We\u2019ve got the wherewithal to do it.\u2019 He never questioned it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing you want is a catastrophic signing; somebody\u2019s cost the football club a lot of money, this was my complete say. I think he wanted to prove his fitness, he wanted to prove Rangers wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

After leaving his post at Celtic Park last month, O’Neill is currently involved with speaking arrangements in Scotland.<\/p>\n

The Irishman made an appearance at the Dalziel Park and Golf Club event on January 4, and is set to appear at The Coachman Hotel on January 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Parkhead icon made an impressive return to Glasgow’s east end before stepping aside for the FrenchmanFormer Celtic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,2628,2987,115919,4884,40125,205149,79673,1946,712,13315,1638,16,15,179997],"class_list":{"0":"post-674728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-celtic-fc","10":"tag-chris-sutton","11":"tag-dermot-desmond","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-henrik-larsson","14":"tag-john-hartson","15":"tag-martin-oneill","16":"tag-rangers-fc","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-scotland-football-team","19":"tag-scottish-premiership","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-wilfried-nancy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115840745822761248","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}