{"id":589365,"date":"2026-05-17T18:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T18:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/589365\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T18:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T18:31:09","slug":"martin-oneill-is-73-year-old-the-long-term-answer-for-celtic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/589365\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin O’Neill: Is 73-year-old the long-term answer for Celtic?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps only Jock Stein is held in higher esteem than O’Neill by Celtic fans. Younger supporters have now seen a fourth league triumph, to go with the stories of O’Neill’s previous three. <\/p>\n

And there will be games within it that go down in folklore, so many of them sealed with late goals.<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s controversial late win at Motherwell, after which O’Neill made a point of going to the away end and revving them up before Saturday’s decider against Hearts, which somehow contributed even more drama to an extraordinary tale.<\/p>\n

When O’Neill left after his first spell this season, he said he was taking the tracksuit<\/a> he had worn on the touchline. A memento of an unexpected chapter. He returned, as did the work clothes, and now he has a trophy to go with it. <\/p>\n

The club legend has made no secret of how surreal and how meaningful his unexpected return has been. <\/p>\n

On top of that, he has represented a unifying figure amid fan unrest aimed at the boardroom. The atmosphere at Parkhead on the final day was almost unthinkable not long ago. <\/p>\n

But is there more to come from O’Neill? He was asked directly about his future after the win over Hearts, but refused to commit.<\/p>\n

“I genuinely don’t know,” he said. “Has anybody talked to me? No, but I wasn’t expecting that. There will be time for conversations after the cup final.<\/p>\n

“I’m pretty old so it does take it out of you.”<\/p>\n

His record this season shows his still has the Midas touch, but whether he has the appetite to go again is another matter.<\/p>\n

“I think he’s done what he can,” former Celtic goalkeeper Pat Bonner said. “I don’t think he needs to go again. The club needs to go in another direction.<\/p>\n

“At 74, Martin O’Neill has hit the pinnacle. He’ll go down in history.”<\/p>\n

If he does decide to walk away, his successor has mightily big shoes to fill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps only Jock Stein is held in higher esteem than O’Neill by Celtic fans. Younger supporters have now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-589365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}