Martin O’Neill has admitted Celtic were looking at younger managerial options before deciding to keep him in charge after last season’s dramatic double.
Celtic recovered their league position, won the title on the final day and then added the Scottish Cup to complete a remarkable turnaround.
That run put O’Neill firmly into the conversation for the permanent job, even though the board had already started looking at what came next.
Speaking to the Daily Record, O’Neill said: “Obviously, towards the end of the season, the board, quite rightly, would be looking at somebody younger coming in and seeing whether that young fellow would want to bring his own team in or work with, let’s say, Shaun Maloney and all of the lads.
“Quite rightly, they should be interviewing people at that stage. I think maybe after us winning the game, they gave me a bit of time and thought that I could be also in the mix, as it were.”
O’Neill was not critical of the process. He accepted Celtic had to consider the longer-term future and look at coaches who could potentially build their own team around the existing staff.
But the way last season ended made it difficult to ignore what he had achieved.
The 74-year-old then had to decide whether he still had the energy to take the job on properly.
He said: “I think it was about a week or so, maybe a bit longer to think about it. Obviously, I was taking time. I think they said, ‘You’d better make your mind up before Christmas!’
“So that does help. So I did that. I was never sure about these things. They didn’t ask me the following day after the cup final. But if they had have done, I honestly think that I wouldn’t really have had the energy.”
That admission says plenty about how intense the final weeks of the season had been.
O’Neill had guided Celtic through a title race that looked lost at one stage, before finishing with two trophies and one of the biggest highs of his managerial career.
He added: “But like everything else then, you think halfway through September time, when you feel as if, ‘Oh gosh, I’m all right. Maybe I could have done it.’ So it was one of those.
“We finished in a great, great high. It was one of the best moments in managerial time and it was terrific. I think I’ve always had the enthusiasm, but I really think it was to do with the energy. Whether you could go and do it again.”
O’Neill now sounds settled in the role and ready for the season ahead.
He said: “Listen I’m fine. It’s great to be out here. And the enthusiasm, which I say, never leaves you. As long as the energy comes out, then I feel okay.”
The board may have started out looking elsewhere, but last season changed the direction of the club’s decision.
O’Neill’s challenge now is to prove that the energy which carried Celtic through that run can last across a full campaign.
wily fox putting this out stops all the talk of transfer good on the scottish media making out the Rangers has signed a million pound player he always moaning at ref when play is going on same when faking injuries good but not good enough for what O’Neil wants or he’d be at Celtic