As every Celtic fan will be painfully aware, the 2025/26 Scottish Premiership and European campaign has effectively gone from bad to worse for most months of the season, and here we sit heading towards the middle of March with little ideal of who will be the permanent manager at Parkhead come the start of next season – and even Roberto Martinez is now being talked about.
With former manager Brendan Rodgers ultimately losing patience with the board and the lack of backing he continually received in the transfer market, he finally walked with results already on the slide and Martin O’Neill returned to restore some pride. O’Neill’s return was a mastersroke both on the pitch and with fans and it was like we had won the jackpot at a crypto live casino UK, but sadly we then replaced him with Wilfried Nancy who was a lovely bloke but seemed to know as much as about Celtic as fans knew about him.
Step in Monny again and another string of good results as we looked to return some pride to the side, wins on the pitch and close the points margin that had developed between ourselves and top spot in the table and another successive title that we all wanted.
We have made progress on that front but we are far from in the driving seat, and even under the legend that is O’Neill we are prone to heavy slip ups. With the year we have had you cannot help but think that any moves to appoint Martinez would again end in tears.
On paper, the 52 year old Spanish former defensive midfielder would be a very intriguing option. Good spells at Swansea City, Wigan Athletic and Everton ultimately led to a six year spell in charge of the Belgian international side, and from there he moved on to Portugal in 2023 where he won the 2025 Nations League.
However, he has spent a long time out of the modern club game and the political relationships that this can involve. Whatever happens at boardroom level at Celtic Park, Martinez would obviously want a fair degree of autonomy and given that he is now used to cherry picking the presumed best of the best, he would also undoubtedly come in with quite specific transfer demands that ensured his own route to domestic success was an effective fait accompli.
There is also the small matter of his personal terms as although we are clearly one of the bigger payers in the Scottish game, he would simply have to be flexible on his terms and likely take a pay cut. If we have a genuine interest here, we will also be facing English Premier League challenges as that merry-go-round south of the border has already begun ahead of the summer, and Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace are unlikely to be the only sides looking for new gaffers for the coming campaign.
The fact we have not already made a move here and continue to appear to be sitting on our hands would, however, strongly imply that this is more speculation rumour mill guff. There will be those who are happy with that, but it still begs the question of just who are we targeting?
