Martin O’Neill has lifted the lid on the brief handover he had with Wilfried Nancy following the Frenchman’s appointment as Celtic manager.
Speaking on talkSPORT, O’Neill explained that the Celtic board had asked him to stay on for one final day after his last game in charge against Dundee – just to meet the incoming boss.
O’Neill made it clear he had no intention of interfering, but stressed that he’d have been happy to pass on whatever insight Nancy wanted. In the end, he says, it was just a courteous introduction.
He told the radio show:
“The board asked me if I would stay on and speak to the incoming manager
“So my last game was on a Wednesday night against Dundee. I would have been flying back to London anyway on Thursday, but I stayed until later on. I met the incoming manager. He was very affable, very nice. It was only a 15-minute conversation. What can you make of anybody in that time?
“He’s got his own philosophy, his own viewpoint on the game, and that is absolutely fine. I was not going to be coming in and giving him advice. I said very, very little. He would have seen the matches.”
“I promise you it was no longer than that. What did you want me to do? Run through everything?
“I would have passed on anything that the incoming manager would have wanted to hear from me. It’s as simple as that. He had his own view on players, and that’s absolutely fine.
“What I would have given him is the thing that I thought was important, which is for him to bed in and put his own mark on the football club.
Now, just a few weeks on, and with three losses on the board, Nancy is already facing major pressure. Whether the club’s board regrets not extending O’Neill’s interim run is a question some fans are already asking.
And if they had chosen to extend his stay, he would have said yes. He made that clear many times on talkSPORT this morning, but ultimately it was the club that decided to end his interim spell and bring in Nancy.
It was a gamble, and hindsight is a great tool, but the club made their decision, and they’re sticking by it.
Martin O’Neill will have to watch on, just like the rest of us.
Keep Reading
